AISLE SAY New York
THE LITTLE MERMAID
Book by Doug Wright
Music by Alan Menken
Original Lyrics by Howard Ashman
New and Revised Lyrics by Glenn Slater
Based on the story by Hans
Christian Andersen
and the Disney film written by
John Musker and Ron Clements
Directed by Fracesca Zamello
Lunt Fontanne Theatre / 205 West 46th Street
http://disney.go.com/theatre/thelittlemermaid/index.html
Reviewed by Mike Princeton
Despite
its being little more in essence than a theme-parked transposition of a Disney
animation, the stage version of The Little Mermaid,
which opened recently at the Lunt-Fontanne
Theatre, has to be reviewed in
several contexts, because in each, the outcome is vastly different.
Context #1: Children
And perhaps most emphatically little girls.
If
they were weaned on the VHS or laser-disk release of the original you
undoubtedly have in your home, they're primed to have a good
time—identifying the characters, recognizing the songs, rooting for
Ariel, who is their fantasy role model: a princess whose desire to grow up and
meet the prince of her dreams comes true. It's a familiar story presented in a
new way, with lots of enthusiastic, committed actors, bright colors, and enough
action to hold their attention for an astonishing two hours, not including the intermission.
Of
course you have to decide on the ticket price investment. With the top at a
staggering $110 per seat, you want your evening of happy to resonate for a long
time to come. So determine what you want it to accomplish. (Let's put aside
whether or not the child's heart's desire is to be there, because if it is,
then of course you must get her there if you can, case closed.) If it's simply
to give her another incarnation of the franchise...there are many other ways to
do that, as well as many other videos as charming and meaningful you can add to
your family library for the same $110. For all the money sunk into the
production, it's a pretty cheesy-looking affair (more on that later) and
aesthetically no more effective than one of the top drawer touring children's
shows pumped out by specialists like Theatreworks/USA, none of whose budgets
come within miles of a single million, let alone several.
If
however your desire is to introduce or encourage a love of the theatre, with a
familiar story and score as a lure and a way in...well, that's it, Sold
American, and mission, very likely, accomplished. It matters not what we as
adults would think, The Little Mermaid has the right kind of eye candy (sea witch Ursula's costume with its
giant moving tentacles; you don't think of it as master puppetry, but it is),
and mind-candy to fire the imagination (everybody who's supposed to live
underwater, with the exception of Sebastian the sea crab [we sort of take it on
faith that he scuttles, though Tituss Burgess mostly walks and dances], glides around on
well-camouflaged roller-blades, which is supposed to conjure the illusion of swimming,
and in a young mind, probably will).
Context #2: Us
For you and me, though? Disappointing, to put it
mildly.
Scenically,
opera director Francesca Zambello and
her designers (scenery: George Tsypin; costumes: Tatiana Noginova; lighting: Natasha Katz; make-up: Angelina Avallone) just
haven't solved it, though they throw some noble ideas at it. Underwater,
backdrops of what looks like textured plastic stand in for the ocean blue; and
as for the various depths, they're conveyed by what seems like transparent,
plastic, articulated curtains, that can collapse in on themselves and then
stretch up, accordion-style. Swimming up to the surface happens behind or
between them in a Flipping by Foy manner, with carefully engineered and
choreographed twists and gainers performed in an unapologetically visible
harness. It's all rather like an elaborate shower curtain festival, and would
serve as well housing an industrial show for Bed, Bath and Beyond.
The
aforementioned roller-bladery doesn't convince either, because it's a visibly
utilitarian solution to a poetic problem. Which must sound a hifalutin
mouthful, so let me put it in more basic terms:
In
a previous, still-running Disney show, The Lion King, director Julie Taymor completely re-imagines the
physical ground-rules of the jungle, such that the symbolism is established as
its own unique theatre language.
The multi-function costumes that emerge right from the start so brazenly announce her poetic intention—to make each
actor and his/her puppet an intertwined unit with both the human and cartoon
faces simultaneously visible—that we instinctively understand the
invitation to be complicit in an illusion. And at that, an illusion that will
inform everything to follow.
But
in The Little Mermaid, despite
scenery that is clearly symbolic, one feels the effort of reaching for literal
substitution. The use of roller blades doesn't make you think, oh, look,
gliding across the floor equals gliding through the water. Rather it makes you
acutely aware of how flat the floor is, how strained the metaphor, and how
earthbound everything feels despite the costumes.
And
about those costumes. My evening's companion made the observation that they
looked as if someone very creative went wild foraging for supplies at the 99˘
store. And indeed, there seems to be a lot of glitter, a lot of day-glo color,
a lot of plastic shiny things, a lot of outfits assembled according to
step-by-steps in a "You Can Make Animal Costumes" workbook for the
home or school hobbyist. A notable exception are the above-referenced costumes
designed for the sea-witch Ursula, whose tentacles dominate the stage when she
appears, in an impressively malign curling and uncurling manner, reminiscent of
the vines and leaves of Little Shop's Audrey II.
The
performances are shamelessly aimed at children (nothing wrong with that, just
know it going in), emulating the animated film where creatures and archetypes
are concerned, allowing a bit more leeway within the template for human (and
half-human) characters; and everything, from Ariel's yearning to Ursula's evil
is played with big, bold, unequivocal strokes, without any tempering subtlety.
The cast is solidly professional, fine actors and vocalists all, but save for Sheree
Renee Scott's show-bizzy
Ursula—a role which allows for some vampy interpretation unique to the
performer—they are so locked into serving the franchise that any actors
of equivalent skill and suitability would do as well. I will say that, within
those constraints, I admire Sierra Boggess for putting as much charm into Ariel as she does; Eddie Korbich for being so fearlessly goofy as the seagull
Scuttle; and perhaps most of all, Broadway's longest-reigning Max Bialystock, John
Treacy Egan, as the maniacal
French chef who, with the broadest accent possible, sings "Les
Poissons" (the fish) and gets to exult in one of Howard Ashman's most
insanely inspired couplets: "Les poissons! Les poissons! Hee-hee-hee!
Honh-honh-honh!"
And
that brings us to the score. As you've heard by now, the original songs by
Ashman and composer Alan Menken are
far more effective than the interpolated new ones by Menken and lyricist Glenn
Slater, but it's not for any lack
of talent on Slater's part, nor even because Menken was seemingly on automatic
pilot for a portion of this filler work. Rather, it's because it is filler work. Doug Wright's book for the stage adaptation has had to expand
upon a 75 minute animated feature, to make it sustain for two acts and about
two full hours of playing time. And stretching out something whose compactness
is one of its strengths is rarely a rewarding job, because it means adding
sub-plots that don't truly impact upon the primary story beats, fleshing out
minor characters we either donŐt care about or just donŐt need more of, and
padding the original beats and
characters as much as one dares. Any songs generated from that work would
therefore be destined to
compound the intention of slowing forward movement. They don't exist because
they're essential—indeed they're the opposite. Slater has in fact
provided some very clever wordplay, but lacking dramatic substance, it lacks
feeling necessary, and is thus the skill invested is easily undervalued.
All
in all, The Little Mermaid feels
like something unrealized and assembled in too great a hurry to fill the slot
left by the departing of Beauty and the Beast.
#3: The Children in Us
Adults with a soft spot for childhood icons would
do well to focus those affections elsewhere. The Broadway Little Mermaid does not have the requisite richness of vision to
satisfy grownups on their own.
ItŐs
another story, however, if you attend in the company of children, and find joy in watching them watch the show. For what it's worth, and for some it may be worth
enough, the night I attended, I was seated in a row behind a mother, father and
two young daughters. The eldest couldn't have been older than seven, the
youngest not older than four. Save for one moment, during some obvious padding,
when the younger one adorably turned to her mother and asked "Where's
Ariel?" (the instincts of a story editor in the making, I tell you!), both
young ladies sat attentively, enthusiastically and quietly throughout it all.
To hold the focus of even the most well-mannered child that long is no mean
feat. And sometimes watching a child's eyes grow wide with wonder is the show. And it almost doesn't matter what's on
stage: that's what you'll
remember. And thatŐs why youŐre there.