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"9 to 5: The Musical" - A Review

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Start with a strong-woman ensemble piece like the 1980 film “9 to 5.” Add music written by gay-fave country diva Dolly Parton. Throw in an orchestra, some sequins and a bit of razzle-dazzle, and you should have a recipe for a little slice of gay heaven.

"9 to 5: The Musical," which opened at New York's Marriott Marquis Theater last night, comes pretty close.

There's reason for skepticism. The whole show hangs on one song, the movie's Oscar-nominated, Parton-penned title track. Is it enough?

This story could have been expressly written for the stage: Three secretaries, Violet, Judy and Doralee, fed up with taking memos and fetching coffee for cigar-chomping chauvinists under a class ceiling, hack the legs off the corporate ladder to get revenge on their boss, the "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot," Mr. Franklin Hart, Jr (Marc Kudisch). Between the 6 a.m. alarm at the top of the show and the triumphant finale, there's an office sex scandal, a little pot smoke, a mix-up with a dead body at the hospital, and some light bondage.

Um … yes please!

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The song "9 to 5" works surprisingly well as a show tune, but that’s literally just the beginning. Parton’s score, featuring 16 new songs, has Dolly written all over it, so not surprisingly, the music is a highlight of the production with hints of country and western and bluesy piano.

Standouts include Doralee’s “Backwoods Barbie” (also appearing on Parton’s 2008 album of the same name), the optimistic “I Just Might,” and “Get Out and Stay Out,” Judy’s proclamation that she’ll get by just fine without Dick (her ex-husband, that is). Hart’s “Always a Woman” proves white men can dance — even with their hands and feet bound in chains. And Violet’s “One of the Boys,” while meant as a sort of paean to the “impossible dream,” reminds us that there are still relatively few women in positions of corporate power.

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The three leads get equal time, practically to the minute. Doralee, the Texas secretary with big...dreams, is played to unnerving perfection by Megan Hilty. She struts across the boards in five-inch heels that could stun a steer. And her speaking voice is a dead ringer for Dolly, who made the role famous. The “rooster-to-a-hen” scene, where she first confronts Hart, gave me honest-to-god goosebumps.

At risk of getting struck by lightning, I have to say she did it better than Dolly.

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Allison Janney is not a singer, but it's OK. I kinda don’t want Violet to sing. Her jaded, sarcastic attitude does not lend itself well to the soaring, optimistic numbers of her costars. Some of the fire has been written out of the lines Lily Tomlin spoke on film, but Janney is well-cast and totally believable as Violet.

Stephanie J. Block as mousy divorcee Judy Bernly nails the role created by Jane Fonda. Block most recently comes to the show from a turn as Elphaba in the New York production of “Wicked,” and astute theatergoers may notice a subtle, probably accidental, nod to those green-skinned days. Listen for it: “No good deed goes unpunished.”

Yet the production is not without flaws. Your inner theater fag may grumble about sloppy (and often superfluous) choreography, the off-stage chorus, or some elements of the direction, but as a friend observed, “It’s not high art. It’s fun.” Where Dolly Parton is concerned, who wants high art? I want boob jokes.

And we’ve got ’em.

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Fans of the movie will notice, to the point of distraction, several odd alterations to the story. Roz (Kathy Fitzgerald), Hart’s office spy, is sent to Denver, not Paris. Office lush Margaret has a different last name. Violet wants to be CEO. They keep Hart’s broken-chair gag, but he never bumps his head or goes to the hospital. And the ending nearly spirals out of control when Violet confesses everything in a diatribe against the corporate establishment. The end of the show is more or less unchanged, so I was left mystified: Why mess with a good thing?

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The one change that actually adds something is an expansion of Roz’s admiration for Hart. The poor thing is in love with him. She gains depth and offers a contrast to the three leads in one of the best numbers of Act I, her ode to the boss, "Heart to Hart." So, when she returns in Act II, you might expect her to have a greater finish than the “Holy merde” ending of the movie. But after all the build-up, she is essentially thrown away.

The second act is weak all over. They puff it up with a contrived love story between Violet and a junior accountant, but it’s a step too far. Janney and costar Andy Karl, singing “Let Love Grow” under a plastic office tree, look as uncomfortable faking it as fans of the movie feel watching it.

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The book by Patricia Resnick, who co-wrote the movie, wisely retains some of the movie’s best one-liners. Doralee and Violet get laughs everywhere they’re supposed to.

“I’m a doctor. Why am I talking to you? Piss off!”

But in the end, you can’t improve on a classic. You can only hope to imitate it. “9 to 5: The Musical” is a faithful mimeograph of the original, but it could do with an upgrade to Xerox. Highly recommended if you’re looking for a good time, but not perfection. You want perfection? Rent the movie.

--Eric Walter

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"9 to 5: The Musical" is playing at the New York Marriott Marquis Theater.

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