Sometimes in theater, you have to raise a little Elle.
As in Elle Woods. The chick with the chihuahua who goes to Harvard Law School. The Malibu blonde who thinks pink. The sorority sister chasing down her mister.
You must remember "Legally Blonde," the fizzy film comedy that was much more entertaining than any adult expected.
A mall maven concerned with her looks rather than books, Elle Woods finagles her way into Harvard Law School to pursue the preppy man she loves. Her credentials are an undergraduate 4.0 grade average -- in fashion merchandising -- from UCLA and a high LSAT score, achieved after repeated testing.
Elle flounces into the Ivy League looking more like Barbie than Judge Judy, and her lack of scholarly motivation almost gets her thrown out of Harvard on her ear. But the girl has pluck, and bolstered by a couple of supportive friends, she becomes a law school star.
The success of the 2001 movie led to a stage musical version of the show, which ran for a year and a half on Broadway after opening in April of 2007. A national touring company of "Legally Blonde" opened Tuesday night in Uihlein Hall at the Marcus Center. It is dumb fun.
In moving "Legally Blonde" from the screen to the stage, the musical's creative team of librettist Heather Hach and composers Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin distilled the buoyant spirit, attitude and energy that made the movie irresistible. The "Legally Blonde" franchise may be silly and superficial, but it succeeds as entertainment on several levels.
The movie and the musical are gleefully escapist, they tap into the girl power theme that appeals to adolescent females, and they possess a streak of exuberant anarchy that tickles those of us who don't regularly wear pin stripe suits and wing tips. Don't you want to see those starchy stuffed-shirt lawyers at Harvard taken down a peg by a blithe blizzard of blond hair?
Although Elle Woods is common in neither appearance nor disposable income, she represents the triumph of common men, women and sense over The Establishment.
Like the movie, "Legally Blonde" the musical is chock full of smart and savvy details that enhance the production. Director-choreographer Jerry Mitchell knows that a chuckle here and a giggle there add up to one big feel-good show. And how can you fail to fall for Bruiser the chihuahua, musical theater's most adorable prop?
A Greek chorus of Elle's UCLA sorority sisters has been added to the stage adaptation. The young women follow her to Harvard, where they comment on her trials and tribulations, and sing back-up on several songs.
O'Keefe and Benjamin's ballad-heavy score is catchy enough to make you want to own the cast album, and their clever lyrics completely capture the "Legally Blonde" attitude.
The film and road company of the musical differ in one critical detail. The stage version does not have Reese Witherspoon playing Elle.
Witherspoon drove the movie with a star's natural charisma that fed her character's comical self-centeredness. The touring company at the Marcus Center features Becky Gulsvig, who understudied the role on Broadway, playing Elle.
Gulsvig is completely competent singing and acting the part, but she comes up short in the diva department. The show requires flashy fireworks from Elle, and we saw a steady candle on opening night. Every performance should be the 4th of July for "Legally Blonde."
The rest of the able cast is led by Broadway veteran Michael Rupert's smoothly smarmy caricature of a law professor. He is first rate.
The road production doesn't always comfortably fit the Uihlien Hall stage. The "Legally Blonde" touring set is very high, deep and wide, and particularly in the first act, it fails to effectively frame some scenes. Some moments are poorly blocked, and our eyes have to hunt for the actors, who appear to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the vast space.
It's an odd problem I have never before seen in Uihlein Hall. Better framing devices are used as the performance continues.
Despite these annoyances, "Legally Blonde" is an entertaining cloud of cotton candy. It runs through Sunday at the Marcus Center.
Lunt & Fontanne, goats & monkeys
In 1935, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne starred in "The Taming of the Shrew" at the Guild Theatre (now the August Wilson) on Broadway. That production will be commemorated when goats & monkeys, the offspring of the defunct Milwaukee Shakespeare, mounts a staged reading of Shakespeare's battle of the sexes comedy at Ten Chimneys April 30. Ten Chimneys, of course, is the former Lunt-Fontanne estate in Genesee Depot.
The reading will be repeated May 1 and 2 at goats & monkey's home performance space, the Live Artists Studio, 228 S. 1st St., in the Fifth Ward. Angela Iannone will direct a cast led by Matt Daniels and Marcella Kearns, who will play Petruchio and Katherina. Goats & monkey's readings are rigorously rehearsed and dramatically developed.
All performances are free, and reservations are recommended. Go to goatsandmonkeys.org/home.html for more information and to reserve seats. Donations are encouraged.
Damien has been around so long, he was at Summerfest the night George Carlin was arrested for speaking the seven dirty words you can't say on TV. He was also at the Uptown Theatre the night Bruce Springsteen's first Milwaukee concert was interrupted for three hours by a bomb scare. Damien was reviewing the concert for the Milwaukee Journal. He wrote for the Journal and Journal Sentinel for 37 years, the last 29 as theater critic.
During those years, Damien served two terms on the board of the American Theatre Critics Association, a term on the board of the association's foundation, and he studied the Latinization of American culture in a University of Southern California fellowship program. Damien also hosted his own arts radio program, "Milwaukee Presents with Damien Jaques," on WHAD for eight years.
Travel, books and, not surprisingly, theater top the list of Damien's interests. A news junkie, he is particularly plugged into politics and international affairs, but he also closely follows the Brewers, Packers and Marquette baskeball. Damien lives downtown, within easy walking distance of most of the theaters he attends.
