Shrek the Musical

Grade: B

Tonight, I was in the audience of the second showing ever of the new Shrek musical, at Seattle's Fifth Avenue Theater. I was dubious. This is not the first show I've seen that was created in Seattle to be sent immediately to Broadway. There was also Hairspray, which spawned a great movie that had none of the screechy voices of the stage production. There was Young Frankenstein, whose only jokes were repeats from the movie. And of course there was The Wedding Singer, which was so unmemorable that my mother forgot she'd seen it.

Shrek blew them all away.

Let's start with the good, because there was lots of it. Of the four main characters, Fiona (played by Sutton Foster) and Lord Farquaad (Christopher Sieber) stole every scene they were in. Ms. Foster has a terrific voice (she's starred in a number of productions on Broadway, and been nominated for a Tony) and a charming willingness to act absurdly. She has the only really good, hummable song in the show, "I Know It's Today" (also well-sung by two young girls playing Fiona at ages 7 and 10).

Christopher Sieber was by far the most impressive part of the show. In an impressive display of athleticism, he parades around the stage on his knees, as his character is very short, all the while belting clever if not classic tunes. It won't be a surprise if Mr. Sieber is nominated for a Tony for his excellent work once Shrek makes it to Broadway in December.

The stage designs were generally well done, with greenery everywhere. The costumes were at times excellent and at times awful. Lord Farquaad's costume was the cleverest, and the ogre costumes for both Fiona and Shrek were decent, as was Donkey. The many fairytale creature costumes were too chaotic, as were most of the scenes involving those characters--more on that later. The dragon, played by about seven women at once, one of whom wears a pointed bra a la Madonna that looks like it could impale someone, started out impressive and quickly grew tedious.

Shrek does a great job of keeping the humor from the movie (most of the dialogue, if my memory serves me, is straight out of the movie), while maximizing its potential as a stage production with clever sets and performances. Many of the songs were decent, though none could rival the powerful songs of Les Miserables or Wicked.

There were a number of great references to other shows, and I'm sure I missed others. An experienced theater-goer will note the nod to A Chorus Line when Lord Farquaad is preparing to evict the fairytale creatures; two Wicked references; and an explicit Lion King parody. The show would have been better with even more (I can think of a scene where the Monty Python killer rabbit would have fit in perfectly, and a scene where the Les Miz flag could have been waved above the heads of fairytale creatures marching together).

Now for the bad.

Shrek, the title character, who is such a star in the movie, fell a little flat. It wasn't that Brian D'Arcy James' performance was poor, but he never stole the stage and never had a really great song. He was almost furniture to offset the stellar performances of Fiona and Farquaad. Similarly, Chester Gregory, who played Donkey, did his best, but the songs that had been written for him (and boy, were there a lot) were mediocre at best, and some should have been cut completely.

The fairytale characters were probably the worst part of the show, as all of their ensemble scenes ran too long and were both boring and annoying. Perhaps when it came to them it would have been best to deviate a bit from the movie, particularly when it came to the Gingerbread Man and Pinocchio having such large roles. As a whole, most of the ensemble scenes were weak compared to the scenes with only one or two characters; the songs were not good and the dancing was pretty lame.

Maybe the most important lesson that Shrek has to learn, and that it will hopefully implement in the coming weeks, is that less is more when it comes to most humor. Jokes that run too long quickly cease to be funny, and gimicks that are played up too much, or over and over (such as Pinnochio's nose growing over, and over, and over again), cease to impress and begin to annoy.

Keep in mind that this show is very, very young still, and will undoubtedly change a lot before it leaves for Broadway. Despite my complaints about it, I enjoyed it thoroughly, which was more than I expected. It's a show for kids and adults (though the six year old sitting next to me burst into tears of fright minutes into the show and had to be removed from the theater), and parents and children alike could be seen sporting ogre-ear headbands. I predict that the show will be a great success on Broadway, much better than the Disney adaptations that are currently there, though it is certainly no Wicked or Jersey Boys. This is one to keep an eye on, and promises to be a pleasure for anyone who's willing to let their hair down for a few hours.