Legally Blonde, the Musical at Ordway Center for the Performing Arts on 4/29/09
By: Janet Preus
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| Legally Blonde - Photo by Joan Marcus |
The plot is mostly preposterous, but never mind that; this is musical comedy and nobody claims that it has to make sense. More relevant is that Elle, played by Moorehead, Minnesota native, Becky Gulsvig, is a thoroughly lovable bobblehead who never forgets to help others along the way as she fights to be taken seriously in Harvard’s heady atmosphere. Of course she saves the day and ends up with the right guy – but that’s not even something I need to tell you, right?
What you’re looking for if you are reading this is the spectacle, and you will not be disappointed. With very little dialogue and just one legitimate ballad, any blip in the plot becomes an excuse for a production number replete with set changes flying and sliding seamlessly through it, back-up singers appearing to beef up the tune (often in the form of a Greek chorus, which worked brilliantly), all landing us in another scene without so much as a string tremolo pause in the action. This is live theater for people used to video games.
It works because the writing is good. The lyrics and music, written by husband and wife team, Larry O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin, suit each other, and the book by Heather Hach keeps the story flowing smoothly, according to the premise’s doofy logic. However, I would have appreciated more dialogue as a rest from the action and a chance to think about the characters and their unfolding futures, and I longed for an entire ballad with minimal accompaniment in Act I as a break in the high energy music.
The cast’s performances were stellar, top to bottom – great dancing, singing, timing, the lot – if you like your acting way over the top. They were so good at it, and because it was justifiable given the show, it’s hard to criticize. I just don’t dig it, myself – not quite that big.
There were a couple of other things that bothered me much more. The depiction of gay men actually made me squirm, and these moments drew the biggest laughs. I’m not overly politically correct, but was it necessary to make these characters so ridiculous?
The other issue is not with this show in particular, it is with all musical theater and show singing these days (unless it is more operatic, such as “Phantom”). For some inexplicable reason, young women are being trained to sing in a pinched, nasally, shrill vocal quality that is not only annoying and difficult to listen to, it makes it hard to understand the lyrics, too. Men don’t sing like this, gratefully, and the men in this show were all easier to understand. With the breadth of frequencies narrowed, and so little rich resonance, what we hear is something like a high-pitched bagpipe. I know those talented women don’t have to sing like that; they have been coached to do it. Somebody please explain to me why, in the age of sophisticated sound equipment, this is necessary?
You’ll also have to buy into the milieu or you might get a prickly feeling about the sexism, which is rampant. Other than that, you’ll have a dandy evening of pure entertainment from the sorority girls shrieking “Oh, my God!” to Bruiser’s perfectly trained barks, to an hilarious spoof on River Dance.
Location Info:
Ordway Center for the Performing Arts
Artist Info: Fox Theatricals
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