Disney's "Frozen" arrives on Broadway, but this one doesn't have the lasting power — or imagination and creativity — of "The Lion King" or "Beauty and the Beast"
Olaf, please save us.
It takes nearly an hour for the bucktoothed talking snowman of Disney’s “Frozen” to make an appearance in the new Broadway musical adaptation of the blockbuster movie. When he does — in the form of a lovingly designed puppet, operated and voiced by Greg Hildreth (who stands just behind the puppet, fully visible onstage) — Olaf lends a jolt of whimsy and weirdness to a show that, until then, just lumbers along hitting the familiar beats of the movie.
The movie version of “Frozen” was a worldwide phenomenon, in part because it was an entirely new commodity that upended the cliches of Disney princessdom. Instead of a girl who needs the love of a charming smoothie to make her whole, it framed its central conflict around a magical young woman forced by the dictates of a repressive society to deny her true self.
The Broadway version, though, is the virtual opposite: a play-it-by-the-book rendering of the story that, in refusing to take any real risks, ends up undermining the story’s core message — namely, that sometimes you’ve got to “let it go,” and let your freak flag fly. For a show about magic and wonder, there’s shockingly little on display here.
In the unlikely event you missed the movie, the story has been translated virtually intact, with a few not-quite-coherent additions and new songs by the film’s composers, Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. (Witness the peculiar Act Two opener, a song called “Hygge,” which veers into PG-13-rated territory, as assorted chorus dancers bound out of a sauna and use tree branches to cover their private parts.)
Otherwise Elsa (Caissie Levy) is still the gorgeous Princess tortured by her strange superpowers, who not-quite-intentionally plunges her entire kingdom into a deep freeze and then flees in shame. Enter her less-glam, but adorably plucky sister Anna (Patti Murin), who joins forces with the ice salesman Kristoff (the exceptionally charming Jelani Alladin) and his galumphing reindeer Sven to chase after Elsa and redeem her in the eyes of her subjects.
, Patti Murin (Anna) and the Company of FROZEN on Broadway. Photo by Deen van Meer.jpg)
Caissie Levy is Elsa and Patti Murin is Anna in the stage version of Disney’s “Frozen,” now playing at the St. James Theatre on Broadway. (Photo by Deen van Meer) Except for a movie that was all snow white-bright charm, the musical version of “Frozen” is awfully dark and dingy — especially the first forty minutes of so, which take place on a heavy-looking, wood-heavy set, with the cast in costumes that look like the faded remnants of the most recent “The Sound of Music” revival. (Christopher Oram designed both the set and costumes.) The special effects, when they come, aren’t terribly special, with light projections to represent the big freeze, and a chintzy-looking crystal scrim to depict icicles. Instead of wowing, Elsa’s big transformation into her sequined blue dress plays like a kitschy outtake from “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
“Frozen,” directed by Michael Grandage, is not without its pleasures: In addition to the Olaf puppet, there’s also a Sven puppet — operated this time by an unseen human (Andrew Pirozzi) performing on all fours, who creates a charmingly lopsided and shaggily majestic onstage creature. (The puppets are designed by Michael Curry.)
The trolls of the movie have been transformed into super-ripped woodland warriors, and they help turn a throwaway number in the movie, “Fixer Upper,” into a highlight of this production. And, yes, Levy sings the bejesus out of “Frozen”‘s one genuinely great song, “Let It Go,” investing it with affecting notes of anguish that aren’t necessarily present in the Idina Menzel-sung movie version.
Mostly, though, this “Frozen” inspires the sort of mild boredom that comes after, say, having watched the same animated movie approximately 150 times with your child; it’s too innocuous to be annoying, but much too familiar to be interesting.
Frozen
St. James Theatre, 246 West 44th Street, New York
Tickets: $ 88.50-$ 377.50; available online at www.ticketmaster.com. On sale through Dec. 30.
Christopher Kelly may be reached at ckelly@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @chriskelly74. Find NJ.com/Entertainment on Facebook.