The show had been going full-tilt for five glorious minutes when it happened: A disembodied voice announced, "...technical difficulties... we'll begin again in five minutes...." The dancers, who'd just begun cutting a funky '60s rug, stopped and walked offstage.

The audience giggled and grinned and shifted, waiting for the punch line. Hecklers hollered, "Is this a joke? This HAS to be a joke!"

But no. This was an honest-to-God fuck-up--and a big mutha at that. During the previous scene change, a key part of the set somehow forgot to make its way onstage. The lack of this piece (and the actor perched upon it!) couldn't be played off or compensated for, and the whole scene went tits up. So, cringing, they stopped, lowered the curtain, confronted the issue, and picked up where they left off.

Now, one might assume that such a colossal whoops (on press night!!) would toss a big hairy monkey wrench into one's gala world premiere. Hairspray had a lot to live up to: a $10.5 million price tag, a classic celluloid namesake, a top-drawer cast and crew, and about two tons of hype. And this unscheduled intermission wasn't the only thing that went wonky--there were on-again off-again microphones and occasional meandering rhythms, as well as a late entrance.

But if you think these flubs hurt this show, you're wrong. From the moment Tracy Turnblad, Hairspray's Rubenesque, rabble-rousing heroine (played with exquisite moxie by Marissa Jaret Winokur), belts out the first bars of "Good Morning Baltimore!" you feel it: Hairspray is going to be musical-theater magic.

Lights up, we have a bird's-eye view of Tracy as she lies in bed, waking to another glamorous day in circa-1962 Baltimore. This isn't the humdrum industrial wasteland you and I call Baltimore--this is the glamorous Baltimore that exists only inside creator John Waters' fashionably obsessive head, an ironic Technicolor dreamland where zits become "anxiety blemishes" and men become disenchanted housewives who then become flamboyant fashion designers. It's a flashy, larger-than-life landscape where hairdos are huge, issues are black and white (literally), and a teenage heroine can bridge racial schisms with fad dances.

Tracy is a stout girl of stout optimism, packing an ample caboose and a head of ratty foot-high hair--and she refuses to be ashamed of either one, thanks. She also has a lifelong dream: to strut her husky stuff with the cool kids--especially dreamy Link Larkin (played by dreamy Matthew Morrison)--on Baltimore's premier teen-dance TV program, The Corny Collins Show.

Unfortunately, the hip world of bubblegum music and trendy moves hides an underbelly of bigotry, as young white Baltimoreans scheme and spritz their way to the top of the cool-kid pile. Tracy takes on the system, allied with her best friend Penny Pingleton (vocal asskicker Kerry Butler), mom and pop Edna and Wilbur Turnblad (legendary Harvey Fierstein and Dick Latessa), and all of black Baltimore. But she's not only in it for herself--Tracy's set on racially integrating The Corny Collins Show ("I want to make EVERY day Negro Day.... It just seems like the right thing to DO!") and making the world a more harmonious place to dance.

Hairspray is more than John Waters' screenplay set to music--it's the perfect realization of the screenplay's potential. Even with the excuse of a legitimate social issue to justify it (racism, duh), this show is really about one thing--really fun theater. I loved every minute of it. I got chills when Harvey Fierstein sailed onstage like a barge in a frock and croaked in his legendary baritone. David Rockwell's sets were so innovative and ingenious it would take pages to describe them. (I have never been to a play in which the sets got continuous spontaneous ovations.) And every major player got a moment to bust out and shine. The costumes? Perfection. The choreography? The same. And the score has been playing on continual rotation in my head since the lights went up (its greatest achievement is that it actually topped itself in the grand finale, "You Can't Stop the Beat"). By curtain, the audience was dancing in the aisles--me included.

No... opening night was far from flawless. But it was pretty darn close to perfect.