Review of Reviews: Stage

The Little Mermaid

Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, New York

(212) 307-4747

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★★

Disney characters have owned Broadway for the past 15 years, said Peter Marks in The Washington Post. Beauty and the Beast made a triumphant transition from screen to stage, and The Lion King proved the Mouse House could win over critics as well as ticket-buyers. So “Disney’s shimmering movie megahit for the kindergarten set, The Little Mermaid, seemed a natural for Broadway.” The 1989 film, which helped revive the studio’s fortunes, introduced the spunky mermaid heroine Ariel, who leaves her underwater home to win the heart of a handsome prince. It showcased some of the best songs ever heard in a movie. Yet the stage adaptation feels cobbled-together and flat. While it may not be as bad as Disney’s stage versions of Aida and Tarzan, it doesn’t come close to the “magnitude of the imaginative delights on screen.”

All the characters you love are still here, said Ben Brantley in The New York Times. It’s just hard to find them beneath the garish pastel sets, meant to represent coral and waves. Director Francesca Zambello’s production achieves “the dubious miracle of translating an animated cartoon into something that feels like less than two dimensions.” Cast members jet around the stage on “Heelys”—wheeled sneakers—impersonating swift-swimming mermen, crustaceans, and other exotic creatures. But they seem awkwardly trapped in “ungainly, guess-what-I-am-costumes.” Tituss Burgess, who plays Sebastian the crab, looks more like a lobster. Sherie Rene Scott, as the evil octopus Ursula, often seems distracted by wayward tentacles. “The impression is often of costumed employees from the Magic Kingdom of Disney World, wandering around and occasionally singing to entertain visiting children.”

Only the cast’s knockout talent “saves their show from the rocks,” said Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune. Norm Lewis shows off huge pipes—and impressive abs—as Ariel’s father, Triton, and Sean Palmer makes one heck of a charming prince. “Burgess’ Sebastian is nothing short of spectacular, both vocally and comedically.” But the performer you’ll remember most is Sierra Boggess, who’s making her Broadway debut as Ariel. “Her guileless and wide-eyed performance is pitched one notch below that of an actual cartoon,” but she has the two traits essential for the role: indomitable optimism and an utterly pure voice. “Her lead performance is everything one could reasonably ask, and it will delight those who grew up with this character and want to introduce her to their daughters.”

Edge

Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, Los Angeles

(310) 477-2055

★★

Why did poet Sylvia Plath kill herself in February 1963? Angelica Torn wants to show us, said F. Kathleen Foley in the Los Angeles Times. Her one-woman vision of Plath’s last day is “a vivid grave rubbing from a brilliant, vandalized life,” summoned with a wealth of detail by playwright Paul Alexander. Plath fans are accustomed to seeing her as a victim, but Torn portrays her as scrappy, resilient, and sardonic, “a fierce fighter determined to end her life on her own terms.” The spirited script mercilessly calls to task the primary figures in her tragedy—particularly her husband, future British poet laureate Ted Hughes—and Torn’s gung-ho performance makes the play a thrill. There’s just one problem. “Torn’s performance—and Alexander’s play—raises the question: Could a woman as dynamic and confident as Torn’s Plath really be at the point of self-annihilation?”

Edge has a bigger problem than that, said Steven Mikulan in the LA Weekly. At first Torn’s self-actualized Plath “seems like a refreshing departure.” By the time Torn has finished, however, her impassioned ranting has turned a feminist icon into a “whiny kvetch.” Plath perfected a nearly oracular tone of idealized victimhood in such poems as Ariel and Daddy. “Torn, however, delivers her observations like Holden Caulfield channeling Dorothy Parker,” turning soul-wrenching truths into polished epigrams. Torn adopts the same hectoring tone whether she’s complaining about her mother, the low quality of British dental hygiene, or her husband’s myriad sins. Ultimately, her complaining makes “Hughes’ desertion of her and their two children look like a reasonable decision.” That can’t be what Torn intended.