The lavish show (reportedly with a more than $12 million (8.8 million EUR) price tag) has energy to spare, a forward motion provided by ace director-choreographer Jerry Mitchell that simply refuses to quit. And a plot, based on the Amanda Brown novel and the 2001 Reese Witherspoon movie, that is more than serviceable.
So why, despite the expensive glitz and an aggressive, go-go attitude, does Legally Blonde only fitfully entertain? Most prominently because of a disappointing score.
Its music and lyrics do not add much to the story of Elle Woods, a perky sorority sister at Delta Nu who gets dumped by her Harvard Law School-bound boyfriend and decides to follow him to its rarified ivy halls.
Along the way, this blond fashion-plate, with a propensity for wearing pink, discovers her self-worth, finds a new beau and gets a law degree to boot.
Female empowerment has proven to be a gold mine on Broadway for another big show: Wicked, and its green heroine, Elphaba. So you can see what the folks behind Legally Blonde might have been thinking as they set out to create their own musical-theater poster girl.
Book writer Heather Hach has nicely condensed the story and even managed to add a few new jokes with up-to-the-minute popular references. While not exactly a cinematic masterpiece, the film had a cheerful spirit that Hach, for the most part, preserves. Things get a little convoluted in Act 2 when Elle and a trio of other law students assist in the trial of physical-fitness guru accused of murdering her much older husband.
Yet Mitchell never lets things lag for too long.
What slows down the production are some of the songs by Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin. Most of them are vaguely pop, tunes with little discernible theatricality.
The melodies evaporate quickly, particularly the more serious love songs for Elle, portrayed by Laura Bell Bundy, and her nerdy mentor, a teaching assistant played by Christian Borle.
News RSS