Dirty Dancer review – Swayze stan is like a whirlwind as she replays 80s favourite
Melissa Firlit recreates Dirty Dancing in a one-woman show that mixes trivia, personal memories and a singalong
Dirty Dancing was the first VHS in our house: snazzy purple box, pure 80s brushstroke title, alluring 15 certificate – and all that slo-mo, black-and-white grinding to the Ronettes before it even begins. I’m not the only one who remembers their first viewing. Melissa Firlit watched the film again and again. Now she recreates the whole thing, from the drive to the Catskills resort, to Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey’s lift, in this fizzy one-woman show.
With a coat stand for costumes and a box of props (yes, she’s carried a watermelon), Firlit strikes a fangirl pose as she whirls us through the film that “changed the trajectory of all films for ever forward”. Going scene by scene, sometimes line by line (“nobody puts Baby in a corner!”), she steps through each mambo, salsa, cha-cha-cha and merengue, with movement direction by Kristyn Pope. Firlit salutes Cynthia Rhodes’ lightning legs, recruits audience members to teach them the Swayze swivel and leads us in a slow handclap for smarmy Neil (played on screen by Lonny Price, who co-directs the fringe musical The Real Kyle McCarren across town).
Tonight’s audience isn’t the liveliest and doesn’t seem to know the words for a singalong of the soundtrack, yet Firlit isn’t deterred. Directed by Michael Thomas Walker, she puts herself in the shoes of Grey’s naive Baby, casting a leather jacket as Swayze’s rebellious Johnny Castle, and channels her inner teenager. She also draws early parallels with her own coming of age, yet these are swiftly sidelined. You want to know more about her – and screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein, who was inspired by her own family holidays to the Catskills.
It plays like a trivia-packed podcast or viewing party, steadfastly following the film’s chronology. Amid some hit-and-miss tomfoolery, Firlit brings a starkness to the abortion plot and is sharp on the class structure at Kellerman’s. Pop-culture segues include cameos for detective Briscoe from Law & Order, another character played by Baby’s father, Jerry Orbach. (Sadly, no waspish appearances for Emily from Gilmore Girls, portrayed by Baby’s mother, Kelly Bishop.)
With a literally uplifting ending, it’s an uptempo night – to misquote Swayze, she’s like a whirlwind – and there’s plenty of audience participation. If that fills you with dread, just put yourself in a corner.
At Underbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh, until 30 August