Director’s Note

The fundamental question a director must ask themselves before embarking on any production is “Why this show and why now?”. With Cry-Baby that answer is easy: a musical comedy social satire about gender politics, class war, racial inequality and religious tension, set against the backdrop of the Russian Red Scare and a global pandemic, seen through the prism of the American dream… Really couldn’t be more relevant, right?

The American dream is an ideology that states: “That every citizen of the United States should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.” This is an expansion of the passage from The Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be selfevident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. Cry-Baby tears these beliefs apart and exposes fundamental issues within the fabric of America’s DNA. This is what makes this piece so wild. It dares to point a finger at the great superpower that is America through one of the greatest American art-forms, the Broadway musical.

Being a John Waters baby, this piece is steeped in the queer-counterculture and riddled with transgressive comedy. This musical is sharp, witty and packs a nihilistic punch while being dressed in bubblegum optimism. Like its older sister Hairspray, this musical paints a very dark image of society. It uses comedy as a way of drawing the audience in and then igniting action of social change. The 1950s defined what a teenager was. Before this time, the generation really didn’t exist. It was artists such as Elvis who gave voice to an entire generation stuck in a conservative world, wanting to escape and find liberation away from the grip of their parents. With that in mind, we looked towards teen pop art of the ‘50s for design and performance inspiration. For our production, we turned to the comic-book and B-film style of the '50s as a way of exploring the work. We leaned into the irony, sarcasm, melodrama and noir-nostalgia. These kinds of musicals are a director’s dream. They play in a high style and give the actors so much room to play and build the ridicules. There is a knowing wink that both the performer and the audience share, which allows for an excellent night at the theatre.

Alister Smith Director