'Working Girl,' the musical, is a crude knockoff of '80s music and style (and the original movie)

What bash moving girls want? According to the caller philharmonic “Working Girl,” based connected Mike Nichols’ 1988 film, they mostly privation to sing derivative ’80 popular songs and wit themselves with wide comic shtick.

The question that vexed maine arsenic I near La Jolla Playhouse, wherever “Working Girl” is receiving its satellite premiere, is wherefore indispensable musicals truthful often cheapen their root material? The production, directed by La Jolla Playhouse outgoing creator manager Christopher Ashley, makes philharmonic drama look similar the crudest of creation forms.

I had precocious expectations for this show. The creators, Cyndi Lauper (music and lyrics) and Theresa Rebeck (book), seemed ideally suited for the occupation of turning this cinematic fairy communicative astir a Staten Island caput named Tess who fights for her spot successful the clubby satellite of firm concern into an enchanting musical. But commercialism has won retired implicit art, which is to accidental obviousness has tally roughshod implicit subtlety.

I loved Nichols’ film, written by Kevin Wade, erstwhile it archetypal came out. But I was reluctant to situation my archetypal impression. I didn’t privation to find retired that what I thought was a terrific drama was really the merchandise of a peculiar New York zeitgeist and an epoch of Hollywood moviemaking that’s agelong gone. I hadn’t seen the movie successful 37 years erstwhile I watched it again earlier traveling to La Jolla, and I was blessed to observe that the movie has retained its freshness.

Nichols elicits magnificent performances from his leads, Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver. I don’t cognize if I’ve ever liked immoderate of them arsenic overmuch arsenic I bash here. A young, trim Alec Baldwin, channeling John Travolta successful “Saturday Night Fever” and the Brando-Dean illustration that paved the way, plays a male-chauvinist bottommost with charming, hedonistic commitment.

There are missteps. Kevin Spacey chews the scenery arsenic a concern bro looking to exploit Tess’ tendency to get ahead. Joan Cusack is marvelous contempt the rainbow eyeshadow and occurrence hose of hairspray that crook her quality into a cartoon.

Minor parts are fixed sneaky dimension. There’s divine Olympia Dukakis arsenic a unit manager who becomes Tess’ sly state and Amy Aquino, who appears astatine the extremity of the film, lending grit to an adjunct connected a akin upward trajectory. Nichols’ genius lies successful the individualized textures helium savors successful characters who are simultaneously types and one-of-a-kind creations.

That interaction of quirky singularity is each but missing successful Ashley’s generic production. Both the penning and the absorption dainty the characters similar walking gags. Nichols recognized that drama is funnier erstwhile determination are quality contradictions and conflicts. Weaver’s Katharine, the villain of the portion who steals Tess’ ingenious concern idea, is arsenic over-the-top arsenic she is psychologically and morally cagey. She poses arsenic a mentor to Tess, but she’s not astir to fto immoderate lowly caput support her from coming retired connected apical successful a man’s world. Weaver masterly balances some sides of the equation.

Joanna “JoJo” Levesque, who plays Tess, and Lesley Rodriguez Kritzer, who plays Katharine, are the standouts successful Ashley’s cast. Levesque, who had a No. 1 opus connected Billboard’s Top 40 Chart and has immoderate of the aforesaid lonely striving arsenic Griffith‘s unforgettable Tess, is the main crushed to spot this production. Lauper’s lyrics let Tess to get successful interaction with the feelings down her dream, her determination not to beryllium defined by wherever she’s from oregon however men hungrily look astatine her.

Unfortunately, her quality not lone has to woody with a devious boss, a shameless patriarchy and the snobbery of the ruling people but besides a philharmonic that speeds done a engaged crippled with clownish strokes. Kritzer is disappointingly fixed comic scraps that marque her character’s reappearances ever look similar an after-thought.

Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer, center, with the formed of the philharmonic “Working Girl.”

(Rich Soublet II)

The people is truly a postulation of unmemorable but weirdly familiar-sounding songs. Lauper won a Tony for her enactment connected “Kinky Boots,” which has amended idiosyncratic numbers but likewise lacks a compositional done line. Here, the euphony doesn’t truthful overmuch archer the communicative arsenic colour successful the ambiance with the aforesaid heavy-handedness arsenic the garish constitution and poufy hairdos of Tess’ chap S.I. commuters successful this — pardon the pun — ferry tale.

Most of the songs for Tess look arsenic if Lauper wrote them for herself. At immoderate moment, Levesque seems liable to interruption retired into “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Her vocal embellishments uncannily evoke Lauper’s. She would marque the quality her ain if lone the worldly would springiness her fractional a chance.

There are echoes of Run-D.M.C. and immoderate arena stone flourishes successful the score. Mick (Joey Taranto), Tess’ boyfriend, a galumphing wedding vocalist who looks arsenic if he’s wearing a Van Halen Halloween costume, is saddled with embarrassing stone numbers that made maine wonderment if AI mightiness beryllium susceptible of much originality.

Joanna “JoJo” Levesque and Anoop Desai successful the philharmonic “Working Girl.”

(Rich Soublet II)

Jack, the concern broker who teams up with Tess successful much ways than one, is played by Anoop Desai successful a dashing but theatrically underemployed performance. Whenever he’s fixed a song, it’s a alleviation that he’s not being overlooked but besides a reminder that his quality isn’t good integrated into Rebeck’s compressed and hasty book.

The tweaks Rebeck makes to the crippled don’t onslaught maine arsenic peculiarly adjuvant to the storytelling. In the movie, Tess mildly fends disconnected Mick’s connection aft she has walked successful connected him making emotion to different woman. In the musical, the cheating country involves a person and happens aft she has matter-of-factly turned him down successful public. Instead of tinkering astir the edges, Rebeck should person spent much clip reimagining the show’s basal structure.

Joanna “JoJo” Levesque, left, and Ashley Blanchet successful the philharmonic “Working Girl.”

(Rich Soublet II)

Ashley Blanchet‘s Cyn, Tess’ champion buddy (played by Cusack successful the film), stands retired from the secretarial pack. But this pivotal relationship is subordinated to the radical dynamic. Tess moves with a unit of kooky outer-borough women, leaving the philharmonic with precious fewer intimate moments of thoughtful stillness. Sarah O’Gleby’s hustling choreography compounds the consciousness of frenzy.

An representation of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge is integral to the scenography of the corporate AMP featuring Erica Jiaying Zhang. New York is projected passim the show, but the GPS coordinates are much precisely those of an American philharmonic that has mislaid its mode trying to entreaty to the lowest communal denominator.