(The Musical Comedy)

by Chad Beguelin & Tim Herlihy
Directed by Tim French
At Stage West, Mississauga
April 22-July 4, 2010

   What redeems the many bad jokes and generic music of The Wedding Singer is a nice streak of irony. Based on The New Line Cinema film written by Tim Herlihy and starring Adam Sandler, a comic actor I usually find unfunny, the stage show has several new songs composed especially for it. The story carries us back to old nostalgia, that in this case amounts to a sentimental remembrance of Big Hair, upturned collars, and formulaic situations. There really isn’t much of a plot: it’s 1985 and Robbie Heart, who is New Jersey’s favourite wedding singer, is jilted at the altar by his fiancée. Wounded to the quick, Robbie turns every wedding into a disaster. He is saved from utter despair by Julia, a lovely waitress, who is supposed to marry Glen, an unpleasant Wall Street shark (is there any other kind?). Robbie falls in love with Julia, who falls out of love with Glen, but before their final clinch, the lovers have to jump through several of life’s hoops, but have the support of a score that pays homage to pop songs of the 1980s.

   Tim French’s production proves to be a crowd favourite. Though it is almost sabotaged at the start by Matthew Campbell’s off-key singing, it recovers nicely, thanks to the same actor’s boyish charm, and an irrepressible urge to be entertaining at all costs. It helps that the dances, like the songs, have a perky aggressiveness and that they are executed by fine dancers—nowhere better than the first act finale “Saturday Night in The City.” It also helps that the main roles are filled by competent players who know how to milk their moments—such as Kristen Peace as Linda, the mean and dirty blonde bombshell in leather and busty bodice who jilts Robbie and then pleads “Let Me Come Home” in a showstopper that is very special, sexy pleading, or Karen Wood as a saucy grandmother who is not beyond a break dance or a naughty joke, or Andrew McGillivray as a reconstituted but nervous Boy George, or Erica Peck (clearly the best singer in the cast) as the ingénue Julia, a role that is a far cry from this same actress’s turn in We Will Rock You. The cast is not condescending to the libretto and it knows how to do parody with an ironic twist.

pic 1:Erica Peck (Julia) and Matthew Campbell (Robbie) in "The Wedding Singer"

pic 2: Erica Peck (Julia) and Ensemble in "The Wedding Singer"






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