‘Waitress, The Musical – Live on Broadway!’ Review: A Heartfelt Reimagining Of Adrienne Shelly’s Indie Swan Song – Tribeca Festival

Damon Wise
·4 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

In hindsight, it’s quite amazing that anyone could watch Adrienne Shelly’s final film as a director and see it as anything but a movie. It was a good one, a simple story about a small-town woman who falls pregnant by her abusive lover and complicates matters by having an affair with her gynecologist. Starring Keri Russell, the film was funny, romantic, frankly feminist and pulled no punches when it needed to, and its modest success of the box office made it all the more tragic that Shelly, murdered in her own apartment by a construction worker in 2006, would never make another.

Taking that and putting it on the Broadway stage was probably not on anyone’s bingo card, yet this production — directed by Diane Paulus with music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles, and book by Jessie Nelson — sails by, even though it adds 40 minutes of running time to Shelly’s slender story. The structure is the same, and many of the comic beats are the same, and, surprisingly for a musical, the most glaring difference is the absence of the film’s unofficial anthem “Baby Don’t You Cry (The Pie Song).” As befits the setting, the music is more traditional than the movie, with its indie-rock needle-drops, and there’s a lot of rock’n’roll pastiche going on, which puts it in a loose nexus with Hairspray, Little Shop of Horrors and the original stage version of Grease.

More from Deadline

Director Brett Sullivan records Paulus’ fluid staging in a way that suggests he may have studied Spike Lee’s 2020 concert movie American Utopia. Not that Lee reinvented the wheel in any spectacular way, but his filming of David Byrne’s concert show was clearly the work of a team player rather than a documentarist. Sullivan takes a similar approach, regarding the audience, the stage and the building itself as characters, consolidating the idea of live theater as something to participate in as much as be seen.

Songwriter Bareilles takes the lead and holds the stage effortlessly as Jenna Hunterson, pastry wizard at Joe’s Pie Diner. Jenna calls the town home, but as she is quickly reminded, “Sometimes home is just where your ass ends up.” Becky (Charity Angél Dawson) and Dawn (Caitlin Houlahan) are her co-workers and confidantes, and it is to them she reveals that, at a time when she’s getting restless with her inattentive and sometimes violent husband Earl (Joe Tippett), she’s pregnant (“Funny how one night can ruin your whole life”). A visit to Dr. Pomatter (Drew Gehling, a 180-degree contrast to the film’s more stereotypically attractive Nathan Fillion) tells her that not only is she eight weeks gone, she is also perilously attracted to the equally married physician.

As in the movie, there are certain customers that stop by — like the scene-stealing Ogie (Christopher Fitzgerald), Dawn’s eccentric date, who gets the show-stopping number “Never Ever Getting Rid of Me” — and the plot hinges on Jenna’s wistful wish to win the upcoming pie competition and leave Earl. But though, like the movie, the musical doesn’t sugarcoat a bad marriage, there’s some sympathy for Earl — like almost everyone else in this town, he’s a character shaped by disappointment and disillusion.

Surprisingly for a musical — well, it must be one or it wouldn’t need an exclamation mark — the production ebbs and flows quite nicely. Some songs are obviously more memorable than others, but there’s no sense of desperation for a breakout tune; everything serves the story. And by the time the credits roll, you might be amazed to realize that nearly two and a half hours have just whizzed by, only 40 minutes shorter that Damien Chazelle’s Babylon. As they say in theater land, bra-vo!

Title: Waitress, The Musical – Live on Broadway
Festival: Tribeca (Spotlight+)
Director: Brett Sullivan
Stage Director: Diane Paulus
Screenwriters: Music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles, book by Jessie Nelson, based on the motion picture written by Adrienne Shelly
Cast: Sara Bareilles, Charity Angél Dawson, Caitlin Houlahan, Drew Gehling, Dakin Matthews, Eric Anderson, Joe Tippett, Christopher Fitzgerald
Running time: 2 hr 24 min
Sales agent: FilmNation Entertainment

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.