Review: Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage

I once named Dirty Dancing the movie I'd most likely watch if I happened to stumble across it while channel surfing. I've seen the entire movie about four or five times, but I've seen parts of it—Baby struggling with the watermelon, Johnny Castle pounding his chest in rhythm to his heartbeat, that famous lift—more times than I can count. And I'm not alone. If you love Dirty Dancing the movie, you really love it, for its mixture of nostalgia, sexy dancing, romance, and corny optimism.

So the creators of Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage, were left with a bit of a dilemma. How do you take a beloved film like that and transfer it onto stage? The answer: Change as little as possible.

So, watching Dirty Dancing on stage, was something of a bizarro experience. With very few exceptions—there's a bit more historical context (the resort guests listen to MLK's "I Have a Dream Speech") and the relationship between Baby's parents is explored a touch more—it's basically the film, only with different actors, and live.

Such mimesis doesn't always make for the best art, but it sure as heck pleased the Hippodrome audience last night.

Of course, Dirty Dancing lives and dies with its two leads—and Gillian Abbott and Samuel Pergande make a fine Baby and Johnny.

One of the great things about Jennifer Grey's performance in the movie was that she was believably mousy. We watched her blossom—as a dancer, as a woman—but not too much. Famously, Grey got a nosejob and other plastic surgery after the film and it kind of killed her career. Her slightly-too-long nose and boyishly slim body made her more relatable. Abbott isn't quite as much a natural physical fit. Sporting Baby's curly mop and literally all the clothing Grey wore in the movie (knot-tied white blouse over hot pants, anyone?), she looks like a sexy Little Orphan Annie. And she's a real dancer, we can see that even in scenes where she's "acting" clumsy. Still, she's adorable and brings a lot of humor and pluck to the role. Also, the scenes between her and her father (dashing Mark Elliot Wilson) are quite touching.

As for Pergande, he's twice the dancer Swayze was (he's had stints with ABT and Joffrey) and half the actor. But he has Johnny's alpha male swagger—a physical way of commanding the stage—which might even be more important. The sexy dances Johnny does with Baby in the film might even be sexier here—and that's saying a lot.

The rest of the cast all get their moment to shine, particularly Emily Rice as Baby's sister Lisa (her cracked version of "Hula Hana" is a hoot); Jenny Winton, with those legs for days, as the Johnny's pregnant dance partner Penny; and singers Doug Carpenter (also Johnny's nephew Billy) and Jennlee Shallow. (Another new addition is a tiny romance between these two crooners.)

On the night I saw it, an understudy, Amanda Brantley, played Baby's mother Marjorie. While clearly about 10 years too young for the part, she acquitted herself well. Mark Elliot Wilson brought a perfect mix of decency and stubbornness to his role as Dr. Houseman.

In the finale, when Johnny announces, "Nobody puts Baby in the corner" my audience roared (the fact that she wasn't actually in a corner when he said this was a minor quibble). By the time he and Baby pull off the tricky lift, they were positively delirious.

Dirty Dancing may not be a triumph of imagination, but it's certainly a triumph of giving the audience exactly what it wants.

p.s. The show made a very nice gesture at the end, with Gary Lynch, who plays Max Kellerman, making a little speech and collecting money for the Baltimore Community Foundation, which is helping to rebuild the city after the Freddie Gray unrest. Good job, Team Dirty Dancing!

Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage plays through May 24 at the Hippodrome Theatre.