If you have a sweet tooth for music from the fifties and sixties and a craving for the times of endless bubblegum chewing, groovy getups, big hair, and peachy keen innocence, you will enjoy The Marvelous Wonderettes. The off-Broadway musical is fun, full of energy, and will have you tapping along to the catchy, nostalgic song numbers.
The show is about four friends, Suzy (Kristen Bracken), Missy (Misty Cotton), Cindy Lou (Christina DeCicco), and Betty Jean (understudy Leslie Spencer Smith) who are chosen to sing at their 1958 Springfield High senior prom. Full of school spirit and peppiness, the girls open the show by cheering on their school mascot (“Go Chipmunks!”) and performing “Mr. Sandman.” That segues into “Lolipop,” which the girls amusingly mess up a couple of times. For instance, the group’s leader, Missy, will say the steps out loud before they do them (“now turn around!”) and the girls will showcase their lovable clumsiness. The second number introduces humor into the show.
The Marvelous Wonderettes is mostly focused on how talented these four actresses are as singers. While the plot is iffy, their performances are impeccable. The standout of the show is Misty Cotton, whose voice is as commanding as an opera singer’s, even when she’s being silly. Missy is the underdog of the group but she is certainly the audience’s favorite. When collecting a ballot from the audience, all of the cards from my section had Missy’s name circled for Prom Queen (although Suzy ends up winning as a plot point).
Cotton performs one of the most powerful songs in the show, “Secret Love,” which is about her hidden crush. At one point, the group takes a member from the audience – a man in his sixties – to act as Mr. Lee, Missy’s crush revealed. They dance with “Mr. Lee” on stage a few times throughout the show, and the act is beyond adorable.
In the second half of The Marvelous Wonderettes, the time is 1968 and the girls are back to sing at their ten-year high school reunion. This part of the show adds a little more personality to the characters as they’ve come of age and dealt with struggles over the past decade. The performances of the second act are also more electrifying. Each actress carries out at least three solos. If I had doubts about any of these four actresses in the first act, in the second, they were laid to rest.
Bracken’s character starts out as the most innocent and naïve character in the first part, but in the second, changes during a strong cover of Otis Redding’s “Respect.” Cindy Lou, who is prim, proper, and entirely self-centered during the senior prom, returns to the reunion a changed woman. She is in love with a man who was the bad boy of the high school, Billy Ray, which leads to two wonderful performances about their relationship: a roaring rendition of “Leader of the Pack” and “Son of a Preacher Man.” DeCicco is stunning, and her voice is beautiful. While Smith’s singing isn’t particularly memorable, her hilarious performance is. Out of the four girls, Smith and Cotton shine as the comic relief.
The Marvelous Wonderettes is as sugary sweet as the bubble gum that Suzy chews throughout the show. Although the plot is weak (as musicals that rely on unoriginal songs sometimes are) it is the talent of the four actresses that make it a fun and pleasurable time. Even if you weren’t around when these songs of the 1950s and 1960s were released, it will still have you dancing in your seat.
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