This version of 'Girl' is not working

World premiere of musical based on 1988 film struggles. But JoJo rocks in the lead role.

- CHARLES MCNULTY THEATER CRITIC

JOANNA "JoJo" Levesque, center, leads the cast of the musical "Working Girl."

What do working girls want? According to the new musical “Working Girl,” based on Mike Nichols’ 1988 film, they mostly want to sing derivative ’80 pop songs and humor themselves with broad comic shtick.

The question that vexed me as I left La Jolla Playhouse, where “Working Girl” is receiving its world premiere, is why must musicals so often cheapen their source material? The production, directed by La Jolla Playhouse outgoing artistic director Christopher Ashley, makes musical comedy seem like the crudest of art forms.

I had high expectations for this show. The creators, Cyndi Lauper (music and lyrics) and Theresa Rebeck (book), seemed ideally suited for the job of turning this cinematic fairy tale about a Staten Island secretary named Tess who fights for her place in the clubby world of corporate finance into an enchanting musical.

But commercialism has won out over art, which is to say obviousness has run roughshod over subtlety.

I loved Nichols’ film, written by Kevin Wade, when it first came out. But I was reluctant to challenge my first impression. I didn’t want to find out that what I thought was a terrific comedy was actually the product of a particular New York zeitgeist and an era of Hollywood moviemaking that’s long gone. I hadn’t seen the movie in 37 years when I watched it again before traveling to La Jolla, and I was happy to discover that the movie has retained its freshness.

Nichols elicits magnificent performances from his leads, Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver. I don’t know if I've ever liked any of them as much as I do here. A young, trim Alec Baldwin, channeling John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever" and the Brando-Dean example that paved the way, plays a malechauvinist heel with charming, hedonistic commitment.