Kelli Barrett Thinks BEACHES Always Resonates Because of the Power of Female Friendship

Two brilliant, loving, undeniably smart girls meet on a beach in Atlantic City. Cee Cee and Birdie come from opposite sides of the class divide. The two could not be more different. And yet, a friendship is formed that will endure for decades, even as life pulls them in opposite directions. 

Broadway veteran Kelli Barrett understands why Beaches has endured. Beginning with Iris Rainer Dart’s 1985 novel, then the 1988 film classic led by Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey, it’s a story of female friendship that still resonates today. For Barrett, the chance to play Birdie feels perfectly in the spirit of this tale: Barrett’s upbringing was nothing like Birdie’s, and yet she understands her on a profoundly emotional level. 

Beaches is now a musical on Broadway, currently in preview at the Majestic Theatre. Barrett plays the privileged Birdie opposite Jessica Vosk as aspiring performer Cee Cee. Dart adapts her own story with Thom Thomas and pens the lyrics, while Mike Stoller composes the score and Lonny Price directs. 

What was your relationship to the film version of Beaches prior to joining the musical?

I absolutely loved the film. It was one of the seminal movies of my youth, one of the big five: Boys on the Side, Terms of Endearment, Fried Green Tomatoes, Steel Magnolias and Beaches. My husband and I, when we were introducing each other to our favorite films, when it was my turn he’d go: “Does a young woman get cut down in her prime, again?” And I’d say, “Yes, it wouldn’t be a favorite movie of mine if she didn’t.”

Why do you think it’s a story that endures? What’s at the heart of that?

It’s that special bond between women, something that many of us have been lucky enough to experience with our girlfriends. When you see that reflected back to you on the page, in the way that Iris [Rainer Dart] did, it’s just a recognition. The idea that someone knows you as intimately as anyone ever really could. I had that with my girlfriends growing up.

There is a purity to the connection that Cee Cee and Bertie form in the opening scenes, when they meet as little kids. You watch that and think, how do we end up messing with that? How do we lose that purity?  

Kids don’t have all the bullshit that we have. They can find each other in different ways. The thing is, these two women would have never been friends if they’d met when they were older. Never, not in a million years. So it teaches us: that naivete and innocence of youth is a beautiful thing. If we could trust our inner child when we’re meeting other people, there might be a lot of people in our life who would make us much more beautiful, and so much more well-rounded. 

Cee Cee and Birdie also come from very different class backgrounds. How is that divide explored in this version of the story?

It’s a big part of the musical. Birdie comes from the upper class, and her mother is pressuring her to marry. In order to keep the money flowing, I have to marry Michael Barron, who is in “iron and steel.” And I don’t like him! He’s pompous, and he doesn’t support my goals. I want to be a lawyer, and he laughs at me when I tell him that. 

And then you’ve got Cee Cee who’s living in a fifth floor walkup eating tuna she stole from her cat. What I love is, we’re both underdogs, just in completely opposite ways. Birdie wants Cee Cee’s freedom, and Cee Cee wants Birdie’s security. 

I love that they’re both unquestionably good at what they do. Birdie is incredibly smart. And there’s no doubt, from early on, that Cee Cee is an incredible performer. 

Yes, Cee Cee is undeniable in her talent right from the beginning. As is Jessica Vosk, the actress, undeniable. 

Of course, undeniable. 

And Birdie is undeniably intelligent. She has a keen eye, she sees things that other people don’t see. She has a passion for people, and for justice. It’s very interesting to musicalize that in the two of them. Cee Cee has these big show numbers, because she’s a performer. Birdie’s songs are story-driven. So that’s a really interesting paradigm. 

I just watched the film for the first time, and the theatrical shows Cee Cee is appearing in are…truly bizarre. 

For the musical, they’re not putting her in shows, they’re giving her numbers. Cee Cee Bloom has her signature number, and we see the progression of her act. It starts off a little less moneyed, and then she gets more fame, and it grows.

That makes sense as a change.

Don’t get me wrong, we all love an “Otto Titsling” here at the Majestic Theatre. Marc Shaiman, let’s go! I love the music from the film. But this is definitely its own thing, and it stands on its own legs. 

What do you love about Mike Stoller’s score and Iris’ lyrics? What are your favorite songs to sing?

The score is amazing, it feels like classic musical theater. I mean, we have a harp in the pit. Right? It’s an 18-piece orchestra, you’re getting some Bernstein, Cy Coleman, Cole Porter, there’s some jazz, there’s bongos at one point. It’s a big sound.

I have two big songs. I love both of them honestly, I wouldn’t know how to choose. The first one is “Brand New Me,” where I’m giving it to my mom and telling her who I am, now that I’ve discovered myself and become a free woman. And then Jessica and I both have a version of this song called, “My Best,” where we’re investigating, through song, why we love the other person. 

Birdie makes a lot of compromises in her early life, and deals with a lot of pain as a result of those compromises. How did you connect to that journey on a personal level?

I don’t consider myself a Birdie, only in that I did not grow up affluent. Raised by a single mom on a bartender’s salary, was the oldest of many half-sibilings and sort of responsible for them, latchkey kid. So in that way, not a kept person, exposed to everything in the world at a very young age. 

But, Birdie tends to put other people’s emotional needs ahead of her own. And I do know what that is, as the oldest and as somebody who is just now, in my 40s, learning how to stand on my own two feet and say: “This is what I need,” instead of always taking care of other people. 

So Birdie learns the hard way, and learns too late. And that’s what’s so devastating about her story. It isn’t until her early 30s when she gets to have her daughter, and not with the man who took so much from her, and do it on her own. She starts to stand on her own two feet, and claim a bit of her life. And then it’s over.