“Beaches” is best remembered today as the kitschy classic that inspired Paul Rudnick to lampoon it in his screenplay “In & Out.” In a segment that’s a film within that 1997 comedy, a gay soldier is outed and court-martialed when it’s discovered he hides a VHS copy of “Beaches,” starring Bette Midler, in his locker.
“Beaches” is now a musical that opened Wednesday at the Majestic Theater, and for one exhilarating moment, it appears that this show will live up to its camp status in the world of movies. It comes when the two friends Bertie (Kelli Barrett) and Cee Cee (Jessica Yosk) join with their younger selves – Teen Bertie (Emma Ogea), Teen Cee Cee (Bailey Ryon), Little Bertie (Zeya Grace) and Little Cee Cee (Samantha Schwartz)– and all six of them get to sing “Show the World Who You Are,” music by Mike Stoller, lyrics by Iris Rainer Dart. It’s a montage that recalls those short but heavily edited music-driven scenes in 1967’s “Valley of the Dolls” when Barbara Parkins’ Anne Welles is turned into a fashion model and Patty Duke’s Nelly O’Hara is turned into a pop star.
Unfortunately, the so-bad-it’s-good pleasure that comes from a movie is harder to achieve in the theater. The actors aren’t in the room with you when they embarrass themselves on film. In the theater, they’re definitely in the room with you.
The “Beaches” book is written by Thom Thomas and Iris Rainier Dart, who wrote the source material. Who knew that before there was a terrible movie titled “Beaches” there was a terrible novel titled “Beaches”? That title is now 3 for 0.
Thomas and Dart load the musical’s first act with far too many scenes as we watch Bertie and Cee Cee grow up. Which can’t happen fast enough. There’s a real JonBenét Ramsey ickiness on display here. Cee Cee is the sassy one; she uses cuss words. And Bertie is the naive one; she wants to have an affair with her favorite movie star, Rock Hudson. If that weren’t clueless enough, Bertie refers to an oral sex act as a “blow torch.”
Cee Cee’s costumes, by Tracy Christensen, are especially gross. They don’t recall what Bette Midler wore in “Beaches” or even “Stella.” They bring to mind what Barbara Stanwyck wore in “Stella Dallas.”
The musical’s second act is far more cohesive and joke-free, thanks to Bertie’s cancer diagnosis.
Stoller’s songs are serviceable, Rainer Dart’s lyrics are something less. There’s nothing as catchy as Stoller’s “Yakety Yak” or “Jailhouse Rock.” To make up for that deficit, the show closes with “Wind Beneath My Wings,” even though Stoller didn’t write it. That credit belongs to Jeff Silbar and Larry Henley, who have been relegated to a “special thanks” on the last page of the Playbill credits.
A mess as major as “Beaches” required not one but two directors, Lonny Price and Matt Cowart.
