Arts 8c Entertainment

David James/New Line Cinema

Jerry Stiller as Mr. Pinky, John Travolta as Edna Turnblad and Nikki Blonsky as Tracy Turnblad in Adam Shankman's Hairspray

Welcome To The '60s

Hairspray comes full circle from the big screen to the stage and back again.

Michael Fox
Special to the Jewish News

N

ikki Blonsky spends a good
part of an interview in a San
Francisco hotel suite cuddled
up to Adam Shankman and playing with
his hair, but there's no need to alert the
tabloids. The relationship between the
teenage actress and the gay director and
choreographer of Hairspray is close but
assuredly not romantic.
"We are alike in a lot of ways — which
is scary how much like an 18-year-old girl
I am:' Shankman says, and they both burst
into laughter. They don't borrow each
other's clothes, though, for Blonsky sports
a flowered blouse and black slacks while
Shankman hangs out in a purple button-
down shirt, blue jeans and white sneakers.
Blonsky, who makes her professional
debut in Hairspray, grabs the opportunity
to compliment Shankman for mentoring
and protecting her. They're being goofy
friends now, but a different dynamic pre-
vailed during production.
"It may sound crazy, [but] he had a lot
of Jewish mom in him," says Blonsky, a
Long Island native whose father is Jewish
(Blonsky was raised Catholic, like her

mother). "Like Jewish-parent instincts,
where he really wanted to make this expe-
rience the best it could be for met'
Blonsky plays the exuberant and zaftig
Tracy Turnblad, whose dream of dancing
on a Dick Clark-style show despite a less-
than-ideal-TV physique has far-ranging
consequences in early 1960s Baltimore.
(Once on the show, she is appalled to find
out that black teens are not allowed on
the program and leads a fight to end the
injustice).
Hairspray, based on the Broadway musi-
cal that was in turn based on the 1988
John Waters film, is a high-energy, loving-
ly designed musical that — Jerry Stiller's
cameo notwithstanding (he reprises his
small role in the 1988 film as Mr. Pinky, a
dress shop owner who outfits Tracy) — is
about as Jewish as crab cakes.
And yet Blonsky follows in the footsteps
of Jewish actresses Rich Lake and Marissa
Jaret Winokur, who played Tracy in the
original film and the Broadway musi-
cal, respectively. Jewish composer Marc
Shaiman wrote the Broadway score, which
is used in the current movie.
Other cast members include John
Travolta, in full drag, playing Edna
Turnblad, Tracy's loving and very over-

weight mother. (Having a man play Edna
is a Hairspray tradition: the role was
created in the original film by the late
transvestite actor Divine, also known as
Harris Milstead, and Jewish actor Harvey
Fierstein played Edna in the original
Broadway production.)
The casting of John Travolta in the
role of Edna (for which Fierstein won a
Tony) costs the movie some Jewish flavor.
But Shankman believes it's there in the
interplay between Tracy, Edna and Wilbur
(Christopher Walken) Turnblad.
"When I portray the way that every-
body in the Turnblad house talks to one
another" says Shankman, "it's very reflec-
tive of traditional Jewish families. `This
is how it's going to be, and it's my way or
the highway: except not really. Because in
Jewish households, what I have noticed
is the No. 1 thing, no matter hell or high
water, it always boils down to how much
everybody loves each other."
Happy to expound on his favorite theme,
Shankman leans forward on the couch.
"In Fiddler on the Roof that's what
[Tevye] does, he breaks all these rules
'cause he realizes he loves his daughter.
Another thing that's strangely like Fiddler
is that Hairspray is a story about how

times are changing — and having to
change with the times!'
Shankman, 42, had a traditional Jewish
upbringing in the Brentwood section of
Los Angeles when, he says, "there were a
lot of beach clubs that wouldn't let Jewish
members attend." Conversely, Blonsky
wasn't raised Jewish, though she grew up
in the very Jewish enclave of Great Neck,
Long Island.
She sang at plenty of bar and bat mitz-
vahs, though, as weekend gigs. And before
she landed her breakthrough part in
Hairspray, her plan was to work her way
through college singing with an orches-
tra at Jewish parties and weddings. Now,
she says with a laugh, "I'm going to the
University of William Morrie
"If there comes a time that she wants to
go back to college, she'll just go. Nikki will
do what she wants to do;' says Shankman,
sounding a bit like a Jewish mother. "This
one I'm not worried about:'
Shankman attended Juilliard and
worked as an actor and dancer in New
York before returning to L.A. He segued to
choreographing music videos and made
the leap to directing features in 2001 with

Welcome To The '60s on page 42

July 19 • 2007

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