Shrek Comes to Broadway: No Happy Ending

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Bryan-Brown, Joan Marcus / Boneau / AP

Brian d'Arcy James as Shrek, above left, with Daniel Breaker as Donkey and Sutton Foster as Princess Fiona in Shrek the Musical

Shrek, the new Broadway musical based on the 2001 movie hit, is DreamWorks' first attempt to capture a share of the riches that Disney has amassed by turning its animated musicals into Broadway blockbusters. And on paper it's a no-brainer. The movie, based on William Steig's children's stories about a softhearted ogre, was one of the most charming of the new wave of cartoons for the whole family launched in 1989 by Disney's The Little Mermaid. With its fart jokes and self-parodying humor, Shrek was hipper and funnier than the more earnest and straightforward Disney fairy tales, as well as one of the few that appealed primarily to boys, an underserved audience on Broadway, where shows like Wicked and Legally Blonde have become love objects for tween girls. (See TIME's Top 10 Plays and Musicals of 2008.)

But Shrek the Musical doesn't really do the trick. It's pleasant enough but lacks the theatrical polish and imaginative leaps of the best Disney shows. And I think the letdown may have been inevitable.

Shrek the movie differs from the animated hits that Disney has brought to the stage in several important ways. For one thing, it's not a musical — which means no Elton John or Howard Ashman–Alan Menken songs to build a Broadway score around. More crucially, it is the first of the computer-animated films to be turned into theater — which presents different challenges. The romantic sweep and handcrafted classicism of Disney's earlier films could in no way be translated literally to the stage — and that inspired directors like Julie Taymor (The Lion King) and Francesca Zambello (The Little Mermaid) to come up with unique, often inspired stage equivalents. Computer animation, however, adds a level of realistic detail — nuances of facial expression, a more subtle, offhand approach to comedy — that seems to demand a more literal approach.

Yet without the speed and dexterity of the digital palate, everything that was light and offhand in Shrek onscreen becomes heavy and in-your-face in Shrek onstage. Brian d'Arcy James, a competent Broadway-musical vet, looks the part in his lime green makeup as Shrek but misses most of the gentle-giant charisma of the character (voiced by Mike Myers) onscreen. His hilariously hyperactive donkey buddy is a big comedown when it's just a guy in a donkey suit — despite Daniel Breaker's good impersonation of Eddie Murphy's terrific performance. Sutton Foster, a Broadway superstar slumming here as Princess Fiona, is fine, but overall the production, directed by Jason Moore (Avenue Q), is surprisingly ordinary: the gigantic, eye-batting dragon, for example, looks as if it could have been put together by a hardworking community children's theater group.

Shrek, to be sure, has its moments. The ragtag collection of fairy-tale characters, from Pinocchio to the Three Bears, who are evicted from the kingdom by the pint-size despot Lord Farquaad, do a bouncy lament for their sorry plight, "Story of My Life," that is a high point, even if the screechy characters wear a little thin as the evening goes on. Composer Jeanine Tesori (with lyricist David Lindsay-Abaire) has supplied a few other cute numbers, most of them straightforward Broadway pop but with an occasional blues-rock beat, as in the funny, flatulence-enlivened love duet between Shrek and Fiona, "I Think I Got You Beat." The musical's main addition to the movie's irreverent spirit is a few quick spoofs of other Broadway shows, from Gypsy to The Lion King, which add some fun.

But not enough. Shrek got a surprisingly friendly reception from the critics, who have sneered at every Disney show since The Lion King, and it could have a decent run at a time when Broadway shows are wilting under harsh economic pressures. I wouldn't discourage you from taking the kids. But Disney does it better.

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