Not every semipopular movie from the last half century needs to get the stage musical treatment. That’s the takeaway from the lukewarm mess that is Romy & Michele: The Musical, which turns a barely 90-minute bit of piffle from 1997 into a lumbering exercise in candy-colored Gen X nostalgia that drags on for nearly two and a half listless hours. Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion, which grossed less than $30 million at the box office, became something of a cult phenomenon thanks to the kooky chemistry of Lisa Kudrow (at the height of her Friends fame) and Mira Sorvino (fresh off her surprise Oscar win) as the twentysomething BFFs of the title. But the movie’s frankly a bit of a mess, a collection of derivative sketches featuring flashbacks to a very stereotypical clique-bait high school, a present-day reunion where the former mean kids get a predictable comeuppance, and flashforwards to an imagined future where the heroines are married to their old crushes.
This time, Romy and Michele are embodied by two talented fortysomething actresses with a track record of playing movie characters on stage but who seem out of place as high schoolers and twentysomethings. Newsies alum Kara Lindsay dons a series of blond wigs (and a bedazzled scoliosis brace in the flashback scenes) and occasionally nails Kudrow’s off-kilter mannerisms, while Laura Bell Bundy (who famously played Elle Woods in the Legally Blonde musical back in 2007) struggles to re-create Sorvino’s marble-mouthed speech patterns and turns Romy’s rueful social commentary into something that sounds far more bitter and off-putting. What’s worse, though, is that Bundy maintains a version of that voice while singing — and unfortunately she sounds flat for most of her musical numbers and never blends successfully in her duets. Under Kristin Hanggi’s direction, neither actress seems to have achieved either a spot-on impersonation or a performance that makes the character fully her own.
The score, by Gwendolyn Sanford and Brandon Jay, is a collection of forgettable ditties that rely on obvious rhymes of the “groove/move” variety and barely pass as pastiches of ’80s and ’90s pop hits. (I caught echoes of better songs by period bands like Yazoo and Alanis Morissette.) If ever there were a show that begged for the jukebox treatment, it’s this one — especially since the supposedly original songs mostly amplify the mood of a scene rather than deepen our understanding of the stubbornly one-dimensional characters or the herky-jerky plot.
The shortcomings of the movie’s plot are amplified here. Robin Schiff, who adapted her own screenplay, lifts most of the best onscreen lines but does not go far enough to streamline the convoluted story. We meet Romy and Michele as roommates in L.A., underachievers in career and romance who spend most of their time hand-crafting outfits to wear out to clubs and debating which of them is prettier (“I’m the Mary, you’re the Rhoda,” they bicker).
After deciding to attend the 10-year reunion at their Tuscon high school, they borrow a Jaguar from Romy’s job and pad their résumés with the preposterous claim that they invented Post-its, hoping to impress members of the A-Group who tormented them back in the day. That includes the hot football jock Billy (Pascal Pastrana, present mostly as male eye candy); his cheerleader girlfriend, Christie (Laura Zakrin), and her gaggle of by-the-numbers mean girls (Ninako Donville and Erica Dorfler). As in the movie, Romy and Michele seem mostly oblivious to the school’s other outcasts, including the geeky Sandy (Michael Thomas Grant), who openly pines for Michele; goth queen Heather (Jordan Kai Burnett, a deadpan delight), who chases Sandy to no avail; and the camera-toting yearbook kid, Toby (Je’Shaun Jackson), who’s here played as a closeted gay high schooler who comes into his own a decade later. Only Burnett manages to make an impression, delivering an angsty ode to her outsider status that extols the joys of smoking and decries romance (“Love is bullshit”) in a wonderful deadpan that recalls how Janeane Garofalo hilariously shoplifted every scene of the film.
The physical production has a surface polish, relying heavily on Caite Hevner’s colorful LED projections to move us through the multiple settings on Jason Sherwood’s versatile set design. But the ensemble numbers, set in familiar locales such as clubs and high school proms, feel like missed opportunities for choreographer Karla Puno Garcia and a hard-working cast constrained by the generic quality of the material. At least Tina McCartney’s costumes, especially a couple of curtain-call outfits that serve as a colorful callback, showcase the wit and humor that would justify revisiting this quirky duo after all these years.
What do Romy and Michele want out of life? What will “winning” the reunion get them aside from a momentary sense of satisfaction? Neither the script nor the songs let the characters grapple with these questions, and as a result, the musical is a hollow exercise in fan service for a minor blip of a movie that wasn’t even a hit in its day. It’s less a facsimile than a mimeograph, one of those low-res reproductions that served its purpose but left a sad stain of purple ink on your fingers. ★☆☆☆☆
ROMY & MICHELE: THE MUSICAL
New World Stages, Off Broadway
Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes (with 1 intermission)
Tickets on sale through March 1 for $69 to $214
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