(Written by me on April 28 - pre-the birth of this blog)
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OMIGOD YOU GUYS!!! "Legally Blonde: The Musical" is like totally on Broadway now. It is so totally the best new musical ever since like "Wicked." It is like so good I so need to see it like forty more times.
(*muffled fighting sounds*)
Ouch! Out of my head! I apologize for that. I think I may have been momentarily possessed by some mysterious force. Such is the brainwashing power of "Legally Blonde" the new musical that opens on Broadway on Sunday. Try as you might, you just can't resist this musical's earnest sugary charms. It's like a big pink ball of cotton candy. You know it just colored spun sugar stuck on a lousy paper cone, but how can you resist its allure? And so you buy it and you eat it and your hands get sticky and your tongue turns pink, but do you really care? No. Because you are now on a sugar high and you're bouncing down the street happy as can be. Yeah, well that's sort of like "Legally Blonde: The Musical" - the show manages to be more than the sum of it's kind of mediocre parts.
For example, the score by Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin? Not one of Broadway's finer moments. There are a few songs like "Omigod You Guys" and "So Much Better" that take one line of melody and repeat it so many times that the audience has it stuck in their heads for weeks to come. And there may be one or two, probably sung by Orfeh, that could generally be called almost good. But the rest of the score is surprisingly mediocre. It's certainly nowhere in the same league as O'Keefe's "Bat Boy: The Musical," even if he did copy himself a number of time for this score. The fact that "Legally Blonde" leading lady Laura Bell Bundy's voice often sounds reminiscent of "Bat Boy" leading lady Kerry Butler's voice doesn't help matters.
Speaking of Laura Bell Bundy, well... she's no Kristin Chenoweth. Chenoweth is the gold standard for the perky blonde role, and all the other blonde girls out there? Well, they just have live in her shadow. And so even though Chenoweth never actually played the role on Broadway (though she apparently did in developmental readings), it's oh so easy to imagine how brilliant she'd be playing the same character she always plays. Bundy is fine - she certainly works hard enough, and she even does finally win her audience over in the end, but she just has a certain aura of generic around her. Which I guess is actually a good thing for the producers of the show, because she will definitely be easy to replace. Just look at the list of ladies who've played Glinda in "Wicked" and you've got yourself tried and true replacements for Elle in "Legally Blonde."
Now, I would say the biggest disappointment for me was with David Rockwell's sets. Showing such promise with his marvelous creative designs for "Hairspray" and "All Shook Up," these are really bland. And flat. One particularly embarassing set piece - the storefront for the salon, which was just a flat piece that was lowered down on wires, actually swayed back and forth whenever someone went in or out of the door. Would it have killed them to somehow secure it the ground? It was just really embarassing. Very "tour" friendly perhaps, but certainly not impressive to look at.
So where does the show go right? Well, it has a first rate supporting cast. The biggest standouts for me were Chico and Chloe, who played Bruiser and Rugus... Elle and Paulette's dogs. Say what you will, but any time those dogs stepped paw on stage, all eyes (and awwwws) were on them. As far as humans go, the star was definitely Orfeh (who plays Paulette - hairstylist and friend to Elle), who stole the show whenever she was on stage (with only humans, anyway). I don't know if it was just that she had the best material or if it was that she just knew best what to do with it, but she easily stole the show from Bundy. Other notable humans were Christian Borle (charming as always, as the "nice" lawyer/boyfriend) and Andy Karl (an amusing UPS man and Irish step dancer).
Other than that, I'm not really sure what happens, but somehow when all of that ordinary sugar is plugged into that magical cotton candy making machine, something happens that science just can't explain, and a fun show pops out. Somehow, somewhere in the second act, the show changes from being "Okay" (said with a sigh) to "Cute!" (said with a smile). And we stop caring that the music is kind of bland and annoying. And we start to forget that Kristin Chenoweth isn't playing Elle and Laura Bell Bundy starts to seem pretty funny and appealing. And somehow we sort actually get involved in the story and start caring about what happens to these characters. And the jokes start to actually seem funny. The sugar rush somehow kicks in, the brain turns off, and the show just becomes mindless happy fun.
So no, "Legally Blonde: The Musical" is not OMIGOD like the best musical ever ever ever, just like cotton candy is not the best candy ever ever ever... well... maybe the latter part of the statment isn't exactly true... (mmm... cotton candy...), but it manages to mindlessly entertain its audience and puts smiles on our faces.
And unlike "The Wedding Singer" which did pretty much the same thing, and somehow flopped, this one is pretty much tailer made for the teenage girl audience...
OMIGOD did you see the yoga pants in the gift shop? I like totally need a pair.
(*bang* "Oh Mrs. Lovett? How about serving fresh pink meat pies this evening?")
...and will probably run forever.
