Theater Review: ‘9 to 5’ will inspire you to clap along, but story is unbalanced

By T.D. Mobley-Martinez May 25, 2016 | updated 10 years ago

FAC Theater "9 to 5 the Musical" Tuesday May 17, 2016. Photo by Jeff Kearney.

Maybe it’s a good time for “9 to 5: The Musical,” which debuted on Broadway in 2009.

It’s set in 1979, but women are still struggling. Today, we make 79 cents for every dollar a man earns. Less than a quarter of the 100 senators in Congress are women and fewer than 1 percent of the CEOs hired in the U.S. and Canada last year were women, which is the lowest rate in 16 years.

What a downer, right? Perhaps we girls – er, women – could use a pick-me-up. The packed audience on opening night at the Fine Arts Center certainly seemed to think so: They clapped and laughed, hooped and hollered at key bits and every we-will-overcome tune by Dolly Parton, who starred in the 1980 film on which the musical is based. (The book is by Patricia Resnick, who co-wrote the screenplay.) And there were a lot of those tunes. A lot.

And while a few were playful, including “Cowgirl’s Revenge” and “Joy to the Girls,” most of the songs weren’t so great. Simple rhyming schemes and orchestration make them catchy – like that title song – but not nearly interesting or clever enough to power a modern Broadway musical.

“It’s just that you stay on my mind,” sings Stephen Day as Frank Hart, the sexist boss who lords over the trio of main characters, Violet (Miriam Roth), Judy (Jennifer DeDominici) and Doralee (Crystal Mosser). “Every minute, all the time. I’ve got to do it, make you mine completely.”

Ugh.

Resnick’s book doesn’t do much to elevate the good-natured film, which critic Roger Ebert liked, “despite its uneven qualities and a plot that’s almost too preposterous for the material.” The story of the girls’ rise from oppressed to oppressor is sassy but unbalanced, especially as Resnick tries to include the best known aspects of the film – such as the campy fantasy sequences – and set up for the next empty song.

Both Roth and DeDominici are believable and in good voice. (Although Lex Liang’s usually stellar costuming stumbled with Roth, who was ’70s specific, but oddly frumpy, even in her glamorous dance sequence.) But as with the film, the real star of this roughly 90-minute production plays Doralee. In her first film appearance, Parton brought an ebullience and a sweet toughness to the role. Mosser is similarly radiant, with a “Backwoods Barbie” edge (one of the campy-best songs in the musical) and Parton’s relentlessly upbeat energy.

Mosser’s accent is perfect – no small thing – and she slides effortlessly from amiable to indignant to gun totin’ and back again. All that and a voice made for belting. I hope we see her again soon.

Jerry McCauley II’s small role as Tinsworthy, the company owner, is quite tasty, a standout spin on Colonel Sanders, complete with the Southern accent and pointy goatee.

Day certain knows over the top, which he delightfully injected in his role as Adolpho in the FAC’s wonderful “The Drowsy Chaperone.”

There’s plenty of caricature in Frank, which is a given, I guess, with a character who sings lustily about Doralee’s “double ds” and getting said secretary’s legs uncrossed.

One final note: I’m happy to see a production that’s centered on women at the FAC or any other local stage. There are important stories to tell about women – similarly, about African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians and other minorities – and theatergoers here (and elsewhere) see them far too infrequently.