‘The Wedding Singer’ thru Surging Films and Theatricals
The Company. Photo by Ian Rigg.
Right off the main Broadway drag, the Edge Theater’s black-box space is hosting the wedding bash of the summer.
Also, lots of big hair, very big hair.
Indeed, the musical The Wedding Singer takes its cue from its film source, which was as much a vehicle for Eighties jokes as it was for Adam Sandler. It ain’t nothin’ but a good time, but director Billy Surges and company smartly play the light-as-aerosol comedy for real life-and-death stakes.
It zeroes in on Robbie Hart (Kyle Quinlivan), the titular wedding singer who, having christened so many couples before they sailed off into their happily-ever-afters, can’t help but be in love with love, especially with his own nuptials pending. Needless to say, the “Dear John” letter he receives—and at the altar, to boot—throws a spanner in the works, both for his bandmates (Joe Blanchard and Tim Huggenberger)—who’ve been playing weddings while waiting for rock ‘n’ roll fame to grace them—and for all the staff at the banquet hall they’ve been gigging, particularly the waitress Julia (Katie Meyers*), who’d been hoping to engage the band for her own wedding to big-city trader Glenn (Jim Kane). Much to Robbie’s chagrin, there are surprisingly few contexts in which a crowd might want to hear a song called “Somebody Kill Me.”
Clearly, some course correction is needed to bring Ridgefield, N.J. back into tune.
It might be little surprise to say that, in keeping with romantic comedies predating even the Eighties, the course of love doesn’t run smoothly, but that, eventually, the proper pairings are eventually made, all wickedness is vanquished, and there’s a dance party at the end. The pleasure, as always, is in the details, and, light as it is, The Wedding Singer is a well-crafted musical comedy. Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin’s bouncy, witty Eighties pastiches go down just as easily as they get down. (On-point music direction by Daven Taba.) And Beguelin and Tim Herlihy’s book (the latter adapting his film script) is wise to occasionally let up on the jokes and let some genuine heart in.
Casting-wise, Surging once again comes up roses and picks a lovely bouquet. Quinlivan, in particular, is blessed with a great big face just made for rubbery musical-comedy expressiveness, and he’s exactly the sort of person who can make Robbie’s nigh-terminal sulkiness endearing and hilarious. Katie Meyers is our grounder, a perfect comic straight woman, even when singing a sweet coaxing song called “Come Out of the Dumpster.” And nobody’s gone broke ripping the piss out of shortsighted short-selling Wall Street sharks, so Jim Kane goes for broke as Glenn, our villain.
Aesthetically, Vicki Jablonski’s costumes and Will Knox and Surges’s scenery and lights are appropriately and affectionately flashy and tacky. The mondo guitar-amp backdrop is the pièce de résistance, though, and just more evidence of the creativity that this relatively unsung company nurtures. (And I’m not just saying that because I also want that mirrored LED floor for myself.)
Hopefully, with The Wedding Singer, they won’t be unsung for long.
The Wedding Singer runs through September 3rd at The Edge Off-Broadway, 1133 W. Catalpa Ave. For tickets or more information, please click here.
*In the production’s last week, the role of Julia will be played by Stephanie Boyd.
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