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| The perky cast of the stage musical Legally Blonde. |
The musical of Legally Blonde opened last night on Broadway and I'd like to say "I told you so," but I never really got to do it the first time in print.
Let me explain. I saw the show early last February during its San Francisco tryout. The code of critical ethics (yes, we have ethics!) states that you don't review a show out-of-town, unless you're from the town in question. So I didn't write anything about the show at the time.
But, off the record, I let it be known that - although perkier than a drum-majorette on dexedrine - Legally Blonde, the musical lacked several things: a decent score, some honest emotion and Reese Witherspoon. The young woman who plays the part on stage, Laura Bell Bundy, is kind of like the Stepford Wives version of Elle Woods: everything's there except for the light behind the eyes.
I hoped that the creators of the show would see the (to me) obvious problems and fix them in the 10 weeks before they opened on Broadway: slow down the pace, add a little heart, toss in a catchy tune or two and humanize Ms. Bundy.
Judging from this morning's reviews, none of this seems to have happened.
The N.Y. Times said the show "approximates the experience of eating a jumbo box of Gummi Bears in one sitting." The N.Y. Post christened it "Legally Bland", the Daily News blamed "the amorphous, synthetic and maniacally empty-headed music" for its failure and the Associated Press summed it up as "only fitfully entertaining".
It did have its defenders, like Variety which insisted that "It may not be bulging with subtext or boast a score for the ages, but this pinksapoppin funhouse delivers exactly what it promises."
But most of the reviews zeroed in on the same things I noticed 10 weeks ago in San Francisco: no heart, no tunes, no Reese.
It will probably have a nice enough run on Broadway and I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing it up here in Toronto, where the girlpower audiences have proved their clout with the sellout audiences for both runs of Wicked (a much better show, IMHO), but I still think it's safe to say that Legally Blonde will ultimately remain known as the Reese Witherspoon movie, not the Laura Bell Bundy musical.
- Richard Ouzounian
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