Frozen

[edjames]

At least 8 year-olds don't care about reviews!

Perhaps the Iceman Cometh will be better! lol

 

Review: ‘Frozen’ Hits Broadway With a Little Magic and Some Icy Patches

FROZEN

By JESSE GREEN MARCH 22, 2018

 

 

Forget girl power, sisterly love and the high-belt clarion call of “Let It Go.” Anxiety over the handling of a precious gift is the theme that comes through loudest in “Frozen,” the sometimes rousing, often dull, alternately dopey and anguished Disney musical that opened on Broadway on Thursday.

 

The precious gift is not, I hasten to add, the freeze-ray of Queen Elsa, which threatens her kingdom without any corresponding benefits. (Couldn’t they at least hook her up to a gelato machine?) Nor is it the warmheartedness of her sister, Anna, which puts her at constant risk of unelective cryogenesis.

 

No, the precious gift causing so much anxiety at the St. James Theater is the 2013 blockbuster film from which the stage musical has been adapted. After all, $1.3 billion in box office is a lot of ice.

• 
  Patti Murin, in front of ensemble, makes a madcap Anna in the show, which was directed by Michael Grandage.
   
  In ways that are both successful and not, you can feel the director, Michael Grandage, and his design team (sets and costumes by Christopher Oram; lights by Natasha Katz) straining to make something artistically worthy of the property’s commercial promise. At least in comparison with the tryout I reviewed in Denver in September, they’re getting closer.
   
  The show’s masterly first 20 minutes, for instance, have been significantly rejiggered since Denver, and show Mr. Grandage getting the back story squared away swiftly. As little girls, Elsa and Anna, princesses of Arendelle, are loving besties until their parents, the king and queen, are forced to separate them once Elsa’s leaky magic grows powerful enough to threaten Anna’s safety.
   
  

When the girls are then orphaned, the separation becomes permanent. Elsa grows up confined by her power and sense of duty, Anna saddened and rebellious in reaction to their estrangement. It’s like “The Crown” but colder.

 

Eventful and uninterrupted, with no chance to applaud the songs until Anna’s love interest, Prince Hans, appears a third of the way through the first act, the opening suggests that “Frozen” might prove to be unusually coherent for a Disney musical.

 

It is also very beautiful to look at. Certainly it does not attempt to lighten a story that’s fundamentally dark. Ms. Katz’s moody lighting, all amber and gold and sepia on Mr. Oram’s Scandinavian storybook castle, suggests Rembrandt, even if Mr. Grandage was going for the feeling of Shakespeare’s pastoral comedies.

 

You know, Shakespeare pastoral comedies like the one in which Elphaba and Glinda are frenemies. (“Wicked” seems a more obvious template for “Frozen” than “As You Like It.”)

 

In any case, once the castle gates swing open for Elsa’s coronation, letting in townspeople and the requisite Disney cuteness, a different style and palette take over, and “Frozen” begins its long descent into confusion.

 

The problem has nothing to do with the performances, which are never less than professional if seldom much more than that. As Elsa, Caissie Levy booms out her numbers with astonishing aplomb — her “Let It Go” really is sensational — and, as Anna, Patti Murin makes a charming madcap. Both find what nuances they can in characters very narrowly drawn to type. It’s therefore a huge relief, and feels fully genuine, when they get to share a fleeting smile or giggle.

• 
  Supporting characters get their moments, too: Jelani Alladin, left, as Kristoff and Andrew Pirozzi as the reindeer Sven.
   
  But even an elegant solution like that ends up revealing the contradictions baked into the story’s DNA. When Elsa, in the midst of “Let It Go,” transforms from scared little girl to empowered young woman by means of a magical dress trick, it’s the definition of fabulous, but also the definition of Cher. Are we in a Broadway show, an animated movie or a Vegas revue?
   
  The confusion cannot be blamed on Jennifer Lee, who wrote and co-directed the movie and has written the book for the musical. Her work is no worse than that of previous Disney adapters, and in its attention to girls as active characters regardless of men, a good deal better. (For Broadway, Elsa has acquired a don’t-mess-with-me pair of appliquéd trousers to replace a filmy nightgown she wore in the tryout.) But as the material Disney wants to handle gets darker — in this case it is positively neurotic — its formulas get harder to justify.
   
  Not to the bean counters, obviously. Animated musicals and their offshoots have never been so profitable.
   
  But whether “Frozen” will make Disney another billion on Broadway is not my concern. And whether it is suitable family entertainment despite its darkness is a question for parents of young children to decide. The second act seemed to put some of them to sleep — the kids I mean.
   
  The question for me is whether Disney, with the endless resources and talent at its disposal, wants to make its own magical transformation into adulthood. Does it want to create serious, coherent modern musicals instead of cartoons that hedge all bets? If so, it may be time to say let it go to the formulas and the merchandisable reindeer.
   
  

[edjames]

NYPost did not like it either...

 

Broadway has robbed ‘Frozen’ of its heart and fun

By Johnny Oleksinski

 

March 22, 2018

 

Caissie Levy stars as Elsa in "Frozen" on Broadway.

 

For its new stage musical “Frozen,” Disney should’ve heeded the sage advice of Queen Elsa: Let it go.

 

Broadway should be the place to see what you can do, to test the limits and break through. No right, no wrong, no rules for thee — you’re free!

 

But that’s wishful thinking. With “Frozen,” the House of Mouse doesn’t let us in, doesn’t let us see. Stays the good Mouse it always has to be. Conceals, doesn’t feel. Doesn’t let us know.

 

Well, here’s what I know: “Frozen” is not a very good show.

 

That’s a shocker because the film, clocking in at a digestible 1 hour and 49 minutes, is so charming. The characters are lovable, the concept is clever and the icy CGI landscapes have a magical Nordic beauty about them. Its Oscar-winning big song by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, originally sung by Idina Menzel, is Disney’s best in years.

 

But on Broadway, where it’s snowballed to 2 hours 20 minutes, the production’s attempt to replicate the movie onstage has backfired. And not spectacularly. The once lovely story has become visually drab, mechanical and often boring. Cold, if you like.

 

The plot follows the film as closely as a stalker. Little Princess Elsa has the magic power to create ice and snow from her fingertips. The trick is all fun and games till she accidentally turns her sister Anna into a popsicle. So, Elsa slaps on some protective gloves — like spackling a nail hole — and hides away in her room, never coming out for years.

 

Patti Murin and John RiddleDeen van Meer

Adult Elsa (Caissie Levy) finally emerges on her coronation day, and inadvertently magicks the Kingdom of Arendelle into the apocalyptic tundra of “The Day After Tomorrow.” The townsfolk hunt down the sorceress, while Grownup Anna (Patti Murin), who was defrosted by the mystical Hidden Folk, sings upbeat love songs with Prince Hans (John Riddle). The act ends powerfully with “Let It Go,” the show’s only thrilling moment.

 

Also along for the sleigh ride are Kristoff (Jelani Alladin) and Sven the Reindeer, as well as Olaf the Snowman, a puppet-human hybrid played by Greg Hildreth, who can be a bit twee.

 

The show checks off every box on the “Frozen” checklist, so why is it so much worse? In a live theater experience, audiences have different expectations than with animated films — namely human connection and relatability. It’s mighty difficult for Elsa to connect with anybody when, for much of the show, she is alone in a faraway ice palace.

 

Separated, the sisters’ relationship becomes murky. How can you really root for them when the only real glimpse we get of the pair is during one early song, “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?,” which takes place during their childhood? You can’t and you don’t.

 

Even so, the two stars of the show manage to frequently rise above the production’s avalanche of limitations. Murin is a gifted comedic actress, who can mine jokes out of anything. And Levy finds the emotional storm raging inside Elsa quite beautifully. She sings the part better than Menzel, too. During “Let It Go,” little girls will absolutely lose their minds.

 

The last time director Michael Grandage tackled a Broadway musical was 2012’s “Evita,” which he inexplicably sapped of all energy and life, as he has done here. His staging is packed with nifty giant icicles (sets by Christopher Oram) and enough snowy projections for a screening of “White Christmas.”

 

But what “Frozen” desperately needs is a bomb cyclone of heart.

[bostonman]

A source familiar with the production (as they might say in a news report lol) has said (to put it nicely) that the cast is largely not happy with the director's work on the show. Sounds like indeed he really was the wrong match in this case.