‘Mean Girls’ receives an uneven musical update but with Tina Fey’s signature humour still intact

Mean Girls

Book by Tina Fey, music by Jeff Richmond, lyrics by Nell Benjamin and directed by Casey Nicholaw. Through Nov. 27 at the Princess of Wales Theatre, 300 King St. W. mirvish.com or 1-800-461-3333

Move over, Millennials.

There’s a new colony of mean girls at North Shore High School. And these iPhone-toting, social media-swiping queen bees are not just meaner, but more cunning and nefarious than ever before.

That’s because the trio of “it” girls at the centre of “Mean Girls” have received an operating systems upgrade for this generation of digital-savvy teenage Zoomers.

It’s just one of several updates in the 2018 stage adaptation of Tina Fey’s 2004 coming-of-age film of the same name. The “Saturday Night Live” comedian, who wrote the show’s book, has teamed up with her husband, composer Jeff Richmond, and lyricist Nell Benjamin to musicalize her outlandish — yet refreshingly identifiable — tale about the predatory food chain that is the American high school social hierarchy.

It’s always a gamble to adapt a beloved property with a cultlike following for another medium. And in “Mean Girls” the musical, it doesn’t entirely pay off.

Ultimately, this touring production playing at Mirvish Productions’ Princess of Wales Theatre is an uneven product, with energetic choreography by Tony Award winner Casey Nicholaw (who also directs) and Fey’s signature humour largely intact, but also some forgettable songs, a bumpy structure and a tacky production design that will leave fans of the movie wanting.

The overarching premise remains unchanged: 16-year-old Cady Heron (English Bernhardt) enters a real school in suburban Illinois for the first time. She’s recently moved back to America from Kenya, where she was home-schooled while her parents were stationed there for research.

Soon, she’s sucked into the twisted world of high school social cliques and teenage drama. Egged on by social outcasts Janis Sarkisian (an appropriately goth Lindsay Heather Pearce, with deadpan humour) and Damian Hubbard (a delightful Eric Huffman), Cady infiltrates the school’s alpha female group known as the Plastics.

It’s headed by the domineering Regina George (standby Adriana Scalice, covering for Nadina Hassan), accompanied by her two submissive minions, the filthy rich but deeply insecure Gretchen Wieners (Jasmine Rogers) and the daft but droll Karen Smith (Morgan Ashley Bryant). They stick together like a pack of wolves, decked out in bright pink apparel and with their crisply styled hair bobbing behind their heads as if flaunting their social prowess.

Things become even messier for Cady when she claws her way to the top of the group, seemingly forgetting her original assignment, dethroning Regina and becoming a clone of the backstabbing former Plastics leader. Oh, then Cady falls for Regina’s ex-boyfriend, Aaron Samuels (an endearing Adante Carter) — the final catalyst in a full-blown, teenage-hormonal recipe for disaster.

“Mean Girls” works best when it deviates from the original screenplay. The secondary characters of Gretchen, Karen, Janis and Damian are all more fleshed out in this adaptation compared to the original film, each with their solo number and moment in the spotlight.

And while Fey does keep some of the jokes and infamous lines from the film (“fetch,” Gretchen’s go-to word to describe anything cool or awesome, remains throughout), the script has been appropriately refreshed for the social media age, filled with a plethora of zingers showcasing Fey’s masterful wit and her adeptness with contemporary Gen-Z lingo. (This Gen-Z critic approves.)

Take, for instance, one of Gretchen’s lines: “Sometimes I feel like an iPhone without a case. Like, I know I’m worth a lot and I have a lot of good functions, but at any time I could just shatter.” Guffaw-worthy.

It’s Richmond’s and Benjamin’s score, however, that drags down this production. With a few notable exceptions, the songs are plain and unmemorable, with cringe lyrics that seem out of touch with Fey’s sharp humour in the dialogue. (I’m not sure if the words “Apex Predator” will ever roll off one’s tongue easily in song; the musical team’s attempt, for a number of the same name, proves unsuccessful.)

The most hummable numbers are afforded to the duo of Damian and Janis: Damian’s “Stop” at the top of the second act is staged to winning effect thanks to Nicholaw’s tap dance choreography, while Janis’s 11-o’clock “I’d Rather Be Me” is a rousing eff-off anthem in praise of individuality.

But therein lies the problem with “Mean Girls.” By giving the best songs to the supporting characters, both Cady and Regina come off as surprisingly thin. Cady’s revelatory character song, “More Is Better,” doesn’t come until Act 2. And while Gretchen’s and Karen’s meanness comes from a place of insecurity, Regina’s unapologetic cruelness seemingly comes out of nowhere and is so over the top that it makes the final reconciliation between the two central characters all the more forced.

Scalice and Bernhardt both tried their best with the limited material. Scalice nailed Regina’s ice-cold demeanour. Bernhardt effortlessly captured Cady’s journey from green new kid to power-hungry “it” girl, though her singing voice was often inarticulate. (I partially blame it on some poor sound mixing on opening night, but Bernhardt also has a tendency to crescendo ever so slightly through each note, making the first consonants of each word difficult to understand.)

Nicholaw’s staging is brisk and spare. Set pieces (designed by Scott Pask) slickly slide across the stage, quickly setting the scene, of which there are many. The semicircular playing space, however, is wrapped by tacky video screens, with distracting graphics (designed by Finn Ross and Adam Young) that look like they’re pulled from Bitstrips and transitions akin to PowerPoint slide cues.

So, while there are some crackling moments of humour in “Mean Girls,” this adaptation never truly ratchets up the drama and sass you’d come to expect in the North Shore halls. It’s less “fetch,” as Gretchen would say, and more just “fine.”

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