Sit up straight, kids – class is in session and Tina Fey will be our teacher for the week. Yes indeed, the Mean Girls musical has arrived at Place Des Arts to remind us all of the pimply, pressure-filled days we once endured…and the hefty price we paid to try and fit in. High school wasn’t exactly the easiest era for most of us, but – much like this production – the bright spots sometimes balance out the disappointments.
As one might expect, this musical is adapted from the popular 2004 movie for which celebrated comedienne and SNL alum Tina Fey wrote the screenplay. It memorably starred Lindsay Lohan as a teenage girl raised in Africa who is forced to adapt to new surroundings when her parents move her back to the US. Once transplanted, she finds herself torn between two new friends on the outskirts of student society and the trendy-yet-toxic clique “The Plastics”, who rule the school with sexy outfits and catty ways. All of the familiar elements from the 2004 film are here – from the Burn Book to trying to make “fetch” happen – and with two acts to fill, Fey is afforded slightly more time to flesh out the character arcs.
Mean Girls has one of those classic plots where a person loses themselves by inadvertently becoming the very thing they hate. Fey, naturally, keeps things fun and entertaining without sacrificing the humanity of the characters involved. Everyone we meet, including the parents and teachers, are struggling in their own ways to fit in, and it plays well that no one comes off as a one-note caricature just for the sake of a cheap laugh.
That said, there is such a thing as a characterization being so strange that it works like gangbusters. Of all the talented youngsters in this company, MaryRose Brendel’s deadpan delivery as the vapid Karen Smith easily gets the biggest reaction from the audience for that very reason. With a strong physical resemblance to Margot Robbie, she comes across as a brain-dead Barbie who still has enough insight into the human condition to observe that her friend Regina is unkind to compensate for her own insecurities.
As the Queen Bee herself, Maya Petropoulos embodies Regina George’s cruel and controlling nature with sinister confidence. Rounding out The Plastics is Kristen Amanda Smith as Gretchen Wieners, whose inability to assert herself leaves her sadly singing, “I am whoever you want: is that my only appeal?” If this trio remind you somewhat of the three mean girls from another classic film-to-musical translation, Heathers, know that you’re not alone there. Still, these actresses hit all the right notes in their portrayals.
Katie Yeomans, meanwhile, does a solid job as fish-out-of-water Cady Heron, even if she brings little comedic timing to the part, which is admittedly a bit bland. Though she’s often outshined by what’s going on around her, Yeomans has a strong voice and likability, which helps to soften the blow when Cady eventually morphs into a mean girl herself. If Lohan seemed a bit of a stretch as a wide-eyed innocent who only briefly flirts with being a vixen, Yeomans is a far better fit, embodying the kindhearted nerd who tries and fails to be something she’s not.
José Raúl plays the object of her affection, Aaron Samuels, whose mad skills in math class cause Cady to come down with a serious case of “calcu-lust.” It’s a pleasant surprise that Raúl actually seems like your typical high school boy who loves playing basketball instead of a musical theatre actor trying to seem like one, which is usually how these things work out. It’s when one looks a bit closer at his character arc that a couple of contradictions reveal themselves. Aaron is only motivated to pursue Regina and Cady when they slip into their most revealing outfits and adopt sexually forward personas, yet he claims to be turned off once he realizes Cady was playing dumb in math class to justify spending more time with him. How many hormonal teenage boys would even care about such a small ruse if there’s a beautiful girl expressing genuine interest in them? And if Aaron was so mature that he’d care more about the content of a girl’s character than her looks, wouldn’t he have seen through Regina’s act immediately and never dated her to begin with, much less reunited with her?
Male love interests in musicals are often difficult to write, as they usually have to be all things at once: handsome and humble, macho and sensitive, intelligent and still easily fooled, etc. Aaron is far from the worst of them, but with so little spotlight on him during the show, the way he’s written becomes all the more important. Fey doesn’t entirely succeed in that instance, though in a story where Cady’s so-called “good” friends also refuse to pronounce her name correctly, there’s a little strangeness going on regardless of where you look.
Truthfully, the biggest weak spot in the show is the music itself, written by Fey’s husband, composer Jeff Richmond, who deservedly won three Emmy Awards for his wonderful and varied work scoring NBC’s 30 Rock. He was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Original Score in 2018, when Mean Girls first debuted on Broadway, yet the musical’s tunes come off as perfunctory and somewhat forgettable. Regina’s big revenge number World Burn in act two doesn’t quite conjure up a sense of unrestrained fury as much as move the plot forward with a couple of a high notes thrown in for good measure.
There’s also an unfortunate amplification effect used to punctuate the final note of most of the songs in the show, clearly intended to prompt the audience to cheer from a loud acoustic jolt. It’s a tacky tactic and should really be avoided. If songs are going to trigger goosebumps and wild applause, let it be because they come together beautifully early in their runtime and just not at the last second.
Apex Predator, which describes Regina’s effect on her classmates, has one of the better melodies in the score, while the lighthearted Stop has a fun message about knowing when to pull back and reexamine oneself. Still, many of the songs are overstuffed with lyrics – provided by Nell Benjamin – that don’t quite roll off the tongue. Joshua Morrisey, as Cady’s gay bestie Damian, struggles the most with these, especially when he’s asked to dance around while also delivering musical quips and punch lines.
As important as it is to see gay male characters represented on stage, we tend to keep seeing the same one represented over and over in musicals these days: the pop culture-referencing diva with jazz hands and sass to spare. If Janis, Cady’s other bestie, can be written with enough nuance to be something other than an easy lesbian stereotype, perhaps the “almost too gay to function” Damian could have been afforded similar respect as well.
As Janice, Alexys Morera belts beautifully at every given opportunity and leaves you wanting more, which is impressive considering the uniformly strong vocalists in the cast. On a personal note, however, probably the greatest thing about Mean Girls is the fact that this touring production avoids the use of the dreaded digital screens which have been substituting for actual sets both on and off Broadway for years now. The world of Mean Girls is created entirely using old school backdrops and physical set pieces thanks to the scenic design work of Scott Pask. It really is a rare pleasure these days to be able to immerse oneself fully in a show without the unwanted distraction of Photoshopped landscapes gliding around behind the performers, pixel-by-pixel. Human eyes can’t help but pick up on the artifice of those types of visuals, which can compromise the entire experience. While theatre is obviously a world of make-believe, both the paying public and the performers on stage really do prefer that world to be a tangible one.
Everything considered, Mean Girls makes for an enjoyable evening of theatre, filled with plenty of laughs and insightful commentary on the trials of adolescence, presented with panache by a talented cast. If it doesn’t quite earn the highest marks across the board, at least it reminds us all – critics included – that being mean is really just taking the easy way out. Being kind may take a little more effort and self-reflection, but it also makes the world a better place for everyone.
And if that isn’t an important message for our times, I don’t know what is.
Check out Mean Girls at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier until April 27th or at its next Canadian stop – London, Ontario – May 27th and 28th at Budweiser Gardens. For more details on its upcoming American dates, visit meangirlsontour.com and check out the Mean Girls YouTube channel for the official Broadway cast recording, available on YouTube.