Frozen - Theater

Seen 9/16/2017

Frozen is a good musical that could be a great one.    If you saw the movie, everything you would expect to be there is there and more.   Let It Go is every bit the show stopper one would hope.  Cassie Levey as Elsa sings the song with every bit as much power and emotion as you could want.  The special effects do the rest in creating a beautiful ice palace around her as well as magically changing her dress from drab black to sparkling blue.   It works well and ends the first act on a high note.   Both Cassie Levy and Patti Murin as Anna are excellent.    Olaf the snowman and Sven the reindeer are well handled.   Sven is brought to life excellently by Andrew Priozzi inside a puppet costume.   Olav, brought to life by Greg Hildreth, is a puppet as well.  This time the performer is seen onstage manipulating the puppet while giving it voice.   Mr. Hildreth animates Olav well if not with the same abandon that Josh Gad achieved in the movie.   His big number, In Summer, goes over well with the audience.    The second act begins with a great new production number called Hygge.   It is a rousing, upbeat number that features what appears to be a nude chorus line covering their private parts only with pine boughs.   It is funny and opens the second act with a bang that brings down the house.   The special effects both high tech and low create the magic in the story very effectively.  Many are breathtaking, including one at the end created solely by the chorus as Anna freezes solid.   There is a whole lot of very good in the show that leaves everyone happy at the end.  

The trouble with the show lives with the two male leads, Hans and Kristoff, and their relationships with Anna.   Hans is supposed to be the villain of the piece.  Yet the way the story is told and the new songs he is given to sing do not give us a villain and undermine the hero that Kristoff is supposed to be.   Hans and Anna get a meet cute moment early in the first act, followed by a new solo for Hans and then a wonderful new comic duet for Hans and Anna called Love is an Open Door.  These pieces establish Hans as a slightly goofy but charming prince who is the perfect match for Anna.  The connection between them is palpable right away and by the time the duet ends you are rooting for them to have a happily ever after.   There is no hint of Hans’ ulterior motives.    No hint that he is merely seeking to grab the power he can never have in his own kingdom.   At intermission a comment was made asking was Hans not supposed to be the bad guy, did they make him nice for this show?   This underlines the problem.   John Riddle plans Hans as the good guy, noble hero.    Meanwhile Kristoff, who is supposed to be Anna’s true love and hero, comes up as little more than tour guide through the mountains as Anna goes looking for Elsa.  His new songs and duet with Anna are weak and do nothing to establish any sort of real connection between them.    You never feel that he is in love with her.     In the second act he has a solo that is supposed to be a declaration of love to a sleeping Anna.  It is a terrible song and is a real flat point in the second act.    The character needs a much bigger moment to make us believe in his love and start rooting for him over Hans.   Anna also has a solo in the second act called True Love that she sings after Hans has turned on her and left her to die.   While the song is good it drags the show down at a point when it needs to be picking up momentum as it heads towards its climax.   Instead of one powerful moment that bolsters the plot, makes the love between Anna and Kristoff transparent, and builds to the end we get two slow moments that kills the pace of the show.  I would replace both of these songs with a new duet for Anna and Kristoff.   They are apart but realize that they belong together.   This could be a strong moment that sets up the end by helping us understand why Kristoff, who has left to return to the mountains, decides to turn back and save Anna.   Instead we are only told he is coming back.    Jelani Alladin does his best by Kristoff but he is saddled with so much bad material that he does not overcome it and make us really notice or root for Kristoff.     

In short, in stretching out the show to make it a full evening, the creators have done a lot of very good things but also made some choice that weaken the overall arc of the story telling.   Frozen works it magic and through its many charms makes you willing to overlook its shortcomings.   I am sure these will be fixed, but whatever the case it will be a hit on Broaway.