BSO brings back 'Hairspray' -- and John Waters

Two veteran portrayers of the famed drag role of Edna on Broadway are on the orchestra's lineup. Paul Vogt, who did stellar work in the 2013 BSO presentation, will again step into the housedress of Tracy's protective mother. George Wendt, who succeeded Vogt as Edna in during the New York run of "Hairspray" in 2007, will play Edna's easygoing husband, Wilbur, here.

Wendt, nominated six times for an Emmy Award for his work as the ubiquitous Norm on the long-running sitcom "Cheers," enjoyed his Broadway stint playing a hefty Baltimore hon.

"Edna has seven song-and-dance numbers, which for someone who doesn't sing or dance was a real challenge," he says. "I like to think I faked it pretty well."

The "Cheers" veteran embraces the opportunity to switch gears now for the BSO's "Hairspray" venture.

"It's kind of weird to be playing Wilbur opposite Paul," Wendt says. "We're like, 'Is that your line? Is that my line?' I've known him for decades. He's a hilarious guy, and he's a wonderful Edna. I stole a lot of the stuff he brought to the role when I did it."

Now Wendt can borrow from the actors who played opposite his Edna on Broadway, among them Jim J. Bullock.

"I was a slut — I had four Wilburs during my run," the 67-year-old Wendt says with a laugh. "Wilbur is in way fewer scenes and songs than Edna, so now I get to do a lot of sitting, which suits me in my dotage."

The concert version of the musical, an initiative of BSO principal pops conductor Jack Everly, retains just about all of the score, with its spot-on '60s-style songs by Marc Shaiman, who also wrote the lyrics with Scott Wittman. But the dialogue (Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan wrote the book for the musical) is trimmed considerably.

That trimming doesn't faze Waters. He's an old hand at editing.

"All my movies could be five minutes long," he says.

What the concert "Hairspray" loses from the script, it gains from what Wendt describes as Waters' "priceless narration." That narration provided constant amusement and interesting information during the BSO's 2013 performances. The dry wit in Waters' remarks owes something to his early role models.

"Victor Borge was a big influence on me as a child," he says. "There are only three people alive who know who he was. Oscar Levant was another influence."

In addition to plot outline, the narration includes bits of Baltimore history and background on characters and events that helped inspire "Hairspray," notably "The Buddy Deane Show." That was the "American Bandstand"-like program filled with dancing teens — all white for most shows, all black once a week.

The thinly fictionalized "Corny Collins Show" in "Hairspray" takes a dim view of Tracy auditioning for a spot among the show's featured dancers. The reaction is likewise dismissive when Little Inez, daughter of Motormouth Maybelle, a record shop owner and host of "Negro Day" on "The Corny Collins Show," also tries to audition.

"Honestly, when I came in to meet with the creative team about doing Edna [on Broadway], I was a little underwhelmed watching the show," Wendt says, "until the Little Inez scene. And all of a sudden, I got it. I thought, 'Oh, my God, this isn't just a fizzy popular entertainment with pretty girls and pretty boys singing. It's about civil rights.' This show turned on a dime for me. I didn't see it at first through all the Broadway glitz."

Wendt's months as Edna with "Hairspray" in New York coincided with the 2008 presidential campaign.

"It was a real emotional time for the cast," the actor says, adding that Motormouth Maybelle's anthem, "I Know Where I've Been," always a crowd rouser, "really brought down the house the night Obama got elected."

If anything, issues of race loom even larger now, given the current election season and flashbacks to Jim Crow days in some parts of the country. In Baltimore, of course, there are the lingering aftereffects of the Freddie Gray case.

"At the time I wrote 'Hairspray,' people said racist things out loud," Waters says. "Now they think them; it's harder to identify. I'm not being grandiose when I say 'Hairspray' speaks to all of that. That's why it worked. It wasn't preachy. It stands for everybody who has been hassled. But 'Hairspray' has a happy ending, the kind you wish would happen all the time."

If "The Buddy Deane Show" didn't exactly end happily (canceled in 1964, it never did integrate the dancers), Waters remains a fan.

"I still go to the Buddy Deane reunions," he says. The regulars from that show "are all celebrities to me. And they're still really good dancers. Last year's reunion was great — a bunch of 70-year-olds doing the Watusi with no irony."

There are other long-off-the-air Baltimore TV shows that might have ended up as fuel for a Waters movie.

"'The Collegians,' the most bizarre talent show you've ever seen, with mostly local untalented people on it," the writer-director says, "that has a certain ring to it. And 'The Quiz Club' — that was local color, God knows. You could win a woman's girdle. I remember being titillated by that when I was 6."

It's always possible that an existing Waters film could generate another stage show. In addition to "Hairspray," his 1990 film "Cry-Baby" with Johnny Depp made it to Broadway in 2008. It didn't last long, but it had enough lingering appeal to yield a cast album — seven years later.

"I want each one of [my films] to get remade as something," Waters says.

Meanwhile, the successfully remade "Hairspray" remains on a roll, as the BSO presentation and the coming live production for television reaffirm. Safe to say, the show will be regarded as a classic Broadway musical, if it isn't already.

"John says in his narration that he can't believe how mainstream 'Hairspray' has become," Wendt says. "On Broadway, it was almost a family show. It was weird — the perfect show to take junior high girls to. Nobody thought it was controversial. The weirdest thing is that Edna is played by a man, which is nothing."

Might a big revival on the Great White Way be in the offing?

"I can't talk about that," Waters says.

There's always a chance that "Hairspray" will get reimagined and deconstructed, as has happened to other Broadway hits, providing an opportunity to consider the musical from a new angle. Naturally, Waters has a suggestion at the ready.

"They haven't done a nude 'Hairspray' yet," he says. "That would be something for the future."

tim.smith@baltsun.com