'Wonderettes' serve up marvelous fun

'Wonderettes' serve up marvelous fun

The high school experience is so brilliantly universal, that most people - no matter what year they graduated - can relate to the first love and heartbreak that permeate those crucial teenage years.

It's a fitting backdrop, then, to meet "The Marvelous Wonderettes," a bubbly quartet of high school girlfriends who fill in as the last-minute entertainment at their Springfield High School senior prom in 1958. There's blonde, slightly conceited Cindy Lou; her best friend and wise-cracking arch rival, Betty Jean; the ditzy, cheerful Suzy; and slightly nerdy teacher's pet, Missy. Oh, and did we mention all the ladies are competing against one another for the prom queen title?

"The Marvelous Wonderettes," now at Farmers Alley Theatre, is a pleasing musical flashback to the shoop, shoop hits of the '50s ("Mr. Sandman," Lollipop," "Stupid Cupid"), alongside more soulful '60s tunes ("You Don't Own Me," "Son of a Preacher Man" and "Respect"). It's more fleshed-out songbook than a true, full-length musical. But once you get a few songs in, you realize there's a lot going on, even within the songs, to tell the story of changing friendships and evolving lives.

The second act cleverly skips ahead 10 years, finding the girls reunited and performing (where else?) at their 10-year high school reunion. Things haven't gone quite as planned for any of them, but they still find the perfect song to explain it all. This time around, the more mature ladies revel in '60s classics by Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Lesley Gore and others.

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REVIEW

'The Marvelous Wonderettes'

Farmers Alley Theatre, 221 Farmers Alley, Kalamazoo. Wednesday-Sunday through Dec. 26, plus Tuesday, Dec. 21 ; no performances Dec. 24-25. $29-$33. 269-343-2727.

www.farmersalleytheatre.com

Enjoy "The Marvelous Wonderettes" through Dec. 26. Photo: Farmer Alley Theatre