Review - Legally Blonde: The Musical - 9/18/2007

Legally Blonde: The Musical

Palace Theatre

9/18/2007 8:00pm

This outing started out more as a joke, but turned out to be pretty enjoyable. I saw the press release about free tickets to the MTV taping of a live Legally Blonde performance. I submitted an e-mail for me and a friend just for giggles, and we got tickets. They were in the upper right balcony which is essentially miles from the stage, but it was free. Having adored the movie, I always had the urge to see the musical but I part scared me away. So couldn’t beat a free chance.

One of the stipulations of the free tickets was we had to dress in pink, which sucked, but we soldiered forward. They had set up a “pink carpet” for arrivals of D-rated celebrities, and had the crowd stand outside almost taking over that corner of Times Square. A sea of pink, screaming, attention wanting fan girls and boys, I almost wanted to run for the hills. We finally entered and was instructed by a cute chorus boy for pre planned crowd shots, expected at a taping. We were in the country Balcony, so it really didn’t mean anything for us.

The show itself is very flawed and rushes the story way to fast. Even If I had never seen the movie, I still would feel it was rushed. But the supporting cast made up for all of that with their performances. The Greek Chorus - Serena (Tracy Jai Edwards), Margot (Annaleigh Ashford), and Pilar (Asmeret Ghebremichael) were my favorites. They were completely perky and fun throughout the show. The characters in the movie actually annoyed me to no end, but they rocked the musical.

Richard H. Blake was cute as Warner played like a boy band member. Orfeh as Paulette was a real delight. I had never understood the fascination with her, but then she started singing and I was a believer. But no matter how great she sounded it was not the voice I imagined for the role of Paulette though. “Ireland” was a cute song, but didn’t thrill me. Andy Karl was obviously adorable as Kyle the UPS guy. Knowing they are married in real life made it that much cuter.

As for the lead, Laura Bell Bundy, she ruined the show for me. Don’t get me wrong, I respect the talent to get up there and sing and dance 8 times a week, etc. I could never dream of doing that, but she just didn’t do it for me. She tried too hard for a valley girl type voice and it sounded way too nasally. Plus, I didn’t feel anything for her character. I just wanted her to shut up and let everyone else talk. The very essence of the Elle character is being very strong willed and confident, and I just felt like she whined about everything. I gave consideration to the thought that this could be that they gave too much importance and character to the Greek Chorus, but still didn’t convince myself. She and Emmett (Christian Borle) had no romantic chemistry, which is a big part of the show. Christian was adorable given the material given to him.

During the show itself my eyebrow was raised many times in a “Really? I have to endure more of this?” fashion. “There! Right! There!” was pointless and borderline offensive. The gay pool boy scene in the movie was critical but very quick. There have drawn it out into a whole song with many stereotypes. Many shows have songs like that that are praised, but this was obviously going just for cheap laughs. By the end of the show, I felt a bit better just being happy with the actual performances. Whipped Into Shape” was impressively choreographed with a dance number done with jump ropes.

I waited a few days and listened to the cast recording and it grew on me, but I still won’t go gushing praises or anything. I may consider going back again if there is an understudy for Elle, but I won’t put it on the top of my To See list. But it was a fun, light show, so if that is what you are in the mood for, it can be enjoyable.