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SINGER: Performers add their own unusual twist
| Thursday, Dec 31 2009 12:10 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Dec 31 2009 12:10 PM
GO & DO
What: "The Wedding Singer," presented by Broadway in Bakersfield
When: 7:30 p.m. Monday
Where: Rabobank Theater, 1001 Truxtun Ave.
Tickets: $25-$45, plus fees; ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000.
Imagine if you could, like, relive the '80s for one night. With their perm-fried, teased-out-to-there hair, the mall chicks would prance around in neon from head to leg-warmered feet, channeling their inner-Madonna, bedecked in rubber bracelets as they belt out "Material Girl."
The dudes would rock tight stonewashed jeans, sleeveless T-shirts and "business-in-the-front-party-in-the-back" mullets.
Well get out your fingerless gloves and red-leather Michael Jackson jacket: The decade of fashion's worst nightmare will be captured through the rosy glow of nostalgia in "The Wedding Singer," the musical based on the rad 1998 romantic comedy starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore.
And in a too-cute-to-be-true cosmic coincidence of life imitating art, the stars of the musical are a real-life married couple.
J. Michael Zygo plays Robbie Hart, a lovable wedding singer trying to make it big as a rock star. After Robbie is left heartbroken at the altar, he vows to make every wedding he sings at a disaster.
Then waitress Julia Sullivan (played by Jillian Zygo) catches Robbie's eye, but there's a problem: She's engaged to a Wall Street schmuck. The musical kicks into action as Robbie tries to win Julia's heart before she walks down the aisle.
According to the Zygos, the heart-warming musical is similar to the movie, but both actors intentionally stayed away from the film so they could develop the characters themselves.
"The story is very much the same. All the characters in the movie are the same ones the audience loves. There are huge dance numbers and ensembles," Jillian said. However, Michael said there is a little bit of a twist at the end.
As far as their favorite songs and one-liners, they both like to perform the song Robbie wrote for Julia at the end of the movie called "Grow Old With You."
The other song J. Michael has fun singing is "Casualty of Love," which has a similar style to "Love Stinks" in the movie.
"That's when I get to feel like a rock star," J. Michael said. His favorite line: "Now get out of my Van Halen T-shirt before you jinx the band and they break up."
Jillian describes Julia's character as "always strait-laced and serious," so her favorite silly line to deliver is: "Well, that wasn't me, that was my evil twin, Drunky McWasted."
Aside from wearing the gaudy and garish costumes, both actors have experienced other humiliations onstage.
"I forgot some of the lyrics of the most famous song in the musical. 'Grow Old With Me' -- it was my solo," said Michael, who could not look to Jillian for help because she was not onstage.
He sang and played the guitar for a couple courses, "I started scatting and there were a lot of 'sha la la las' until the lyrics came back to me," Michael said.
Jillian's mortifying moment was during a waitressing scene, when she carried a prop plate full of fake food.
As she exited stage left, Jillian dropped the plate backstage, where it landed with a boom -- as someone delivered their lines onstage.
"I literally felt like a waitress who had just dropped and broke a real plate of food and everyone in the restaurant heard the loud crash," Jillian said.
But the opportunity for so much togetherness -- rare for most young couples but virtually unheard of for working actors -- more than makes up for the embarrassing flubs. The couple have been inseparable since meeting in their first voice class at a liberal arts college in New York.
Jillian is fond of another perk the show provides, beyond the steady paycheck and opportunity: "I love it because he gets to propose to me every night on stage."
