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'Wedding Singer' Review

Editor's note: This review originally ran in January. The scheduled performances of this show were canceled to inclement weather. On Thursday, April 1 there is one-time makeup performance at 7:30 p.m. at the Landmark Theater.

You remember the film version of "The Wedding Singer," right? The one in which a classic boy-meets-girl storyline is made memorable by Adam Sandler’s comic pathos set to a fun, nostalgic soundtrack as befits 1985?

In 1998, it was one of the first films to lovingly poke fun at a decade that until then had been too recent to consider satirizing. The shoulder pads, the big hair, the technological innocence, and all of the rest of the bubblegum glamour that characterized the ‘80s – "The Wedding Singer" exposed these as adorably dated, when just hours before, it had seemed like yesterday.

How could Broadway have resisted adapting all of that vintage romance into a musical? The only problem is that when you first replace Sandler with a squeaky clean leading man with lots of stage energy and then substitute era-defining music with some corny, forgettable originals, you’re left with just the costumes twirling around on stage. And even those are less stunningly old-fashioned than they used to be. In 2010, ‘80s fashion has been back for so long that you can purchase an entire yellow-tunic-belted-over-leggings outfit for $19.99 in the juniors section at Target. 

As a result, the wistful feeling that you’re supposed to get when taking in The Wedding Singer at Richmond’s Landmark Theater rapidly becomes a ferocious urge to rush home and pop in the DVD in an attempt to banish the last three hours of your life from your memory. Good news, though: you won’t need to try that hard. I left the Landmark only a couple of hours ago, and I’ve already forgotten a lot of the jokes, most of the dances, and, mercifully, all of the songs.

You would expect some familiar ‘80s pop tunes to crop up now and again, as it makes up such a huge chunk of the movie’s appeal. Not so, the only time we get to hear “99 Red Balloons” is as we’re taking our seats before the show starts. Mirror balls spin over our heads, and the effect is that we are about to enjoy a simpler time in which hairspray was king and Boy George was queen.

As soon as the curtain rises, though, and we meet Robbie and Julia, who are played by actors so clean cut (real-life couple J. Michael Zygo and Jillian Zygo), they look like they just wrapped things up at an ice cream social before heading over to the theater. The hopelessly peppy song and dance numbers whiz us through the cotton candy plot of a guy getting to know a girl and deciding he loves her. Along the way, we pass by some one-liner references to jokes about Bernie Madoff, The Apprentice, Reagan, the sort of heavy-handed, prophetic thing that comedies taking place in decades past love to do. The rest of the ensemble fared adequately with their stock roles, including one or two standouts, namely Shain Fike as Glen, Julia’s corporate stooge of a fiancé and Ellen Karsten as Rosie, Robbie’s filterless mall-walking grandmother.

On average, though, nobody stole the show. Nobody even managed to coax more than some gentle titters out of the audience. In fact, I didn’t really get the impression that anybody really enjoyed the musical in which they were performing, and I certainly can’t blame them one bit. If you got them alone, I’m not positive they wouldn’t tell you to save your cash for "Wicked."

"The Wedding Singer" is at the Landmark Theater on Friday, January 29 and Saturday, January 30 as part of the Broadway in Richmond 2009-2010 season. Music by Matthew Sklar, lyrics by Chad Beguelin, book by Chad Beguelin and Tim Herlihy, based on the film by Tim Herlihy. Second national tour directed by M. Seith Reines and choreographed by Amy Marie McCleary.

Editor's note: This review originally ran in January. The scheduled performances of this show were canceled to inclement weather. On Thursday, April 1 there is one-time makeup performance at 7:30 p.m. at the Landmark Theater.