Mean Girls, a lively musical version of the original 2004 teen comedy, is making a stop in Washington, D.C. before hitting the Broadway stage in March of 2018. The show is running until Dec. 3 at The National Theater, in historic downtown D.C.
A Tina Fey rendition, the musical incorporates modernized humor and dance to stylistically bring the show into 2017. But, Fey still managed to include fan favorite lines from the movie in the production.
Mean Girls opens with the use of projection as the backdrop, a videography technique that continues throughout the show as the primary component of the set. This, in combination with desks and lunch tables on wheels, sums up most of the set, keeping the focus on the witty banter.
Director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw made good use of the cast, constantly switching their costumes to make it appear as if there was a larger ensemble. In one of the final scenes, all of the male cast members put on wigs and served as female characters, adding to the general humor and utilizing the cast size.
The power dynamic of the main three women, known as “the plastics”, drove the tension and satire well, making the commentary about the danger of cliques in high school highly apparent to the audience.
Despite these successes, the show was not without its rough patches. While the dancing was current and contributed significantly to each scene, the music was not particularly memorable and certain songs dragged on too long or recurred too many times in the show. In addition to the forgetful lyrics, the script was overbearingly cynical at times, although that may be a critique of the story itself, seeing as it does include ‘mean’ in the title.
However, the video technology, costumes, cast and modernized yet classic performance outweighs the mistakes that, one could argue, are bound to exist in every new musical.
Mean Girls is a must see, whether you catch it in its last days in D.C. or if you travel to New York City in 2018 to see it on Broadway. It is fit for all ages, and is sure to meet or even surpass the expectations the classic original movie set.
5/5