Theatre in Review: Romy and Michele: The Musical (Stage 42) I must have been out of the country when Congress passed a law stating that every modestly successful comedy film of the last forty years had to be made into a musical. But I can testify that the public-spirited citizens of the New York theatre are living up to their civic duty. Thus, we now have Romy and Michele: The Musical, based on the 1997 release, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. An improvement on a (to me) unwatchable film, it's another by-the-numbers adaptation, dedicated to preserving the original's key gags and rendered in a high-energy production that recalls several better shows. If you end up at Stage 42, the benefits include some sly throwaway jokes; a game, talented cast; and a production design that is often funnier than the doings onstage. For anyone who happened to be living off the grid in 1997, the film, a vehicle for Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino, features a couple of fashion-forward Venice (California) gal pals dedicated to living their less-than-best lives -- clubbing, shopping, and watching endless reruns of Pretty Woman Their sunny existence is clouded by news of their tenth high-school reunion, triggering the unwanted realization, that in the last ten years, neither has achieved a damn thing. (Romy is a cashier at a Jaguar dealership; Michele is an unemployed retail clerk.) Undaunted, they head for their hometown of Tucson bent on impressing the mean girls who made a living hell of their teen years. Robin Schiff's book, based on her screenplay, preserves any gag that the film's fans are likely to remember, including the girls' entrance at the prom dressed a la Madonna, the argument about who is the Mary and who is the Rhoda in their relationship, and the attempt at ordering the "businesswoman's special" in an Arizona diner. The latter gag is tied to their brazen attempts at passing themselves off as captains of industry, with each insisting that she is the true inventor of the Post-It Note. The plot is as air-headed as they come, but there are occasional laughs. I rather liked Michele's comment, "Too bad gay guys aren't straight. Yeah, then you could sleep with them and talk to them." Sound designer Connor Wang has fun making Michele's back brace creak like The Wizard of Oz's Tin Man. (The brace, by the way, is elaborately bejeweled, one of costume designer Tina McCartney's many amusing inventions.) Romy and Michele's cheerleader nemeses, a gaggle of character assassins led by their head ninja Christie, announce, "Make way for the A-Group/The best of Sagebrush High/We're poison for your self-esteem/But candy for your eye." And then there's Romy's prediction that "Christie and those hags will stay in Tucson forever/They'll be buried in polyester muumuus." Outside of Oedipus, playing at Studio 54, that's the direst prophecy in town. Melodically, the songs by Gwendolyn Sanford and Brandon Jay are generic musical theatre ear candy, but, as the above paragraph indicates, their lyrics have some snap. Kirstin Hanggi's school-of-Jerry Mitchell production, featuring uninspired choreography by Karla Puno Garcia, never stops moving, and it has two leads who know what they're doing. Laura Bell Bundy, a veteran of Hairspray and Legally Blonde (both of which are embedded in this show's DNA), has a good time as smiley, yet hard-edged, Romy, whether dreaming about hiring a hot male assistant for her nonexistent job or trying to one-up the reunion crowd with her flip phone. She also takes the lead in "Giant Mystery," a catchy eighties-era anthem about escaping high school forever. (Her California accent, which leaves no "R" unstressed, is something to hear. Kara Lindsay's Michele maintains a head blessedly free of thoughts, especially when admitting that she never realized that, back in the day, she and Romy were social outcasts, or, in a fantasy sequence, stunning Christie and company with her knowledge of Post-It's superior glue-making process. Lauren Zakrin is appropriately lethal as the ruthless social arbiter Christie, who grows up to a weather girl on the "highest rated five o'clock news in Tucson." Jordan Kai Burnett, unrecognizable from her recent turn in the Gilda Rader bio play Gene and Gilda, is Heather, the Goth mental case who grows up to mastermind a cigarette empire; she makes the most of a bitter rant titled "Love Is..." (Spoiler alert: The correct answer is "bullshit.") A surprisingly large share of the evening's fun is generated by the production design, beginning with Jason Sherwood's set, a college of dresses, hairdryers, leopard neck nests, and gummy bears rendered on proscenium with enough pink for two road tours of Legally Blonde. His upstage video screen, which breaks down into six parts, constantly reconfigures for Caite Hevner's projections, which begin with the announcement that it is Los Angeles, 1991 BG -- "Before Google" -- and continues with nonstop imagery taking in yearbook photos, faxes, football fields, diners, dolphins, unicorns, rainbows, several famous LA locations, and a wicked gag spoofing Stranger Things. (Her use of cinematic wipes is especially amusing.) Jason Lyons' lighting keeps the musical numbers lively. But when the production design generates more laughs than the book and score, something is seriously out of balance. Maybe it doesn't matter: Shows like this tend to have self-selecting audiences that come not for musical theatre innovation or sophisticated entertainment but to re-experience a favorite film's biggest hits. In that sense, Romy and Michele: The Musical gets the job done. As for me, I'm nervously wondering what's next in the movies-to-musicals pipeline: Bridesmaids? Knocked Up? Maid in Manhattan? Surely not -- right? Right? --David Barbour 
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