A little back story, the show based on the Disney film of the same name, based on the most twisted Hans Christian Anderson morality story(it's how I would classify it), regards a young mermaid in this case Ariel, who is strong willed and adventurous, who seeks more for herself. She ends up saving a human, or a prince rather, and singing at him, he gets a boner for her voice and vows to marry her. Awwwwwww! Anyway, she trades her voice for a pair of legs, and tries to woo the price into kissing her before she turns back into seafood. Easy enough right? Wrong! Her Aunt the evil sea witch Ursula wants to teach Ariel's daddy King Triton a lesson, so she sabotages every chance Ariel has to make it with Prince Eric! Dun dun dun! Then some shit goes down, Ariel triumphs over evil and all is well with the world. The end! Now we can walk all day in the sun cos we're part of your world. Blah blah.
Okay this show is flawed on so many levels. The only things it has going for it are 1. It's Disney's most successful Princess property therefore translates well into profits from merchandising(they had a hairbrush that looked like a fork for christs sake!), and 2. The wonderful new additions to the already perfect score. Mainly "S
he's in Love" and "If Only(quartet)". The rest of the show is pure garbage.
The main problem with the show was the horrid staging, set design, costumes, choregraphy, special effects, oh everything. First off the staging, I get that you didn't want to use wire work to simulate swimming, I get that I do, but heely shoes, really? REALLY! Come on now! It looked retarded that the "mermaids" would run across the stage and then lean back on their heels and "glide" on the stage. It was the worst for Sierra Bogess, who played Ariel, she kept waving her arms to make it look like she was swimming, but she looked like she was trying to keep her balance. The rest of the staging was so random, like people would just kind of walk out and hang around then walk off stage. Uh what? Have a purpose with your directing Francesca Zambello, you're a hot tranny mess! All characters no matter how small or how non-speaking they are should have a purpose. And the wire work(when they had it), only worked once. The worst was when they had a double for Ariel's transformation into a human, and she/he? was about 15 lbs heavier than Sierra, and looked awkward kicking and flailing. And the big sea witch attack, when the tentacles burst out of the sides of the stage, that was so retarded! I think my reaction was something like "LOL what?"
The costumes! Yikes! Yikes! Yikes! The worst costume was Flounder's by far, a over sized yellow shirt with blue dots, and fins sewn on, and over sized shorts, and yellow underarmour. Yeah he looks like a fish? And Scuttle's costume, he looked so embarrassed, in fact all the cast members looked embarrassed. They would come onstage and be so self-aware that they looked retarded. I felt terrible for them. And the mermaid costumes, they were basically a tail sewn on to a skirt made to resemble seaweed or something? I don't know. And they all looked retarded. Like not just one mermaid, all of them! That is the one thing they should have redesigned from previews in Denver. They didn't even think about the bad notes they got, they were like "It's Ariel people will see it no matter how crappy it is" I guess.
The choreography, yikes! At least with The Lion King, Mary Poppins, and Beauty and the Beast you had some semblance of someone who knew what they were doing. Puke! The most exciting number in the movie "Under The Sea" turned into this lackluster weird movement exercise. I wouldn't even call it dancing, they kind of loafed around and sang. I was so disappointed. I don't really know what else to say, but that that song, had so much potential to be a showstopper, but it failed. And "Kiss The Girl" I wasn't sure where to put this, because it's failure is a combination of factors, direction, choregraphy and costumes, there was someone who had weird abnormal frog puppets that were so distracting, and the see through tops on a lot of the dancers was terrible. Another instance where I can tell the performers were just embarassed and felt horrible so they just kind of gave up. So sad.
The performances, at least this can be a somewhat positive section.
Sierra Bogess as Ariel is what she is meant to be, pretty, charming, decent actor, and acceptable singer. Was she fantastic, no, was she good, yes. She embodied what the little girls in the audience wanted, a pretty girl with a nice body who gets the boy by being herself. Awwwwww.
Sherie Rene Scott was fantastic as Ursula! I kept wanting them to have them do more evil scenes because she by far the most fun part of the show. Funny, and amazing. More Ursula, less Ariel!
Norm Lewis was kind of lackluster as Triton, he just kind of stood there and had a pretty voice that's it.
Alan Mingo, Jr. , stepping in for an injured Titus Burgess excelled at Sebastian. He was funny and charming, sweet without being condescending, and had an incredible voice.
Brian D'Addario was cute as Flounder, showcasing his pipes on "She's In Love" recieving the loudest post song applause, I guess are always impressed with little kids can belt. Oh well. He's a kid so I am not going to say anything bad about his performance, and there wasn't really anything bad to say anyway.
Sean Palmer as Prince Eric was kind of generic, nothing special.
Eddie Korbich as Scuttle was fun, even if he did play him off to be kind of retarded. Scuttle isn't retarded he's just misinformed. That's all.
One more thing about the production, the ending, which is different from the movie, was so anticlimatic. In the movie there is a showdown, here, it is just kind of like "Okay well that's that, Ursula is gone" Uh what? No! Be cool, don't just Ariel be like "I'll break your shell" and then she does. Messed up. Yeah anyway, unless you can get a ticket for free, don't go see this show.
