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Seussical the Musical Seussical the Musical has attached to its red-n-white striped hat, a damaged history that caused it to cough up a big ol' hairball by the time it crawled to Broadway. When the musical had its tryout run away from the prying eyes of the gotham critics, it received uneven to awful reports. This caused the Weisslers (powerful husband and wife producing team) to fire the director, several designers and others to try to salvage the musical. But when it reached the great white way, it was met with scathing reviews by the aforementioned New York critics. The Weisslers roped in Rosie O'Donnell to take over the role of the Cat in the Hat to hopefully boost box office, which it did, but alas only briefly. With frequent stories and gossip items appearing in New York papers and the on the Internet, added to horrible box office numbers, the much tormented production ran through its nine lives, closing on Broadway as a multi-million flop with only 197 performances under its hat. Somehow, however, it seems the cat had an extra life under its tall stove top hat, thanks to a brand spanking new touring production with revamped, redesigned, and reworked book and score. They have added new songs, cut some, and streamlined some of the subplots to bring the story back to its original theme. The overall result is a valiant, if still somewhat flawed production. The score is the best element of the evening. Stephen Flaherty's music is awash in genres of pop, gospel, and standard Broadway gusto and pizzazz. Lynn Ahrens' lyrics and Dr. Seuss's unique vocabulary are a delightful combination. The score is loaded with fun, peppy company numbers with a splattering of soothing, touching ballads. Personal favorites include "Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!," "The One Feather Tail of Miss Gertrude McFuzz," "Amayzing Mayzie," "The Circus McGurkus" (a number that was not on Broadway), "Solla Sollew," and "How Lucky You Are." The design elements for this tour are also top notch. Both young and old will take pleasure in seeing the wacky and brightly colored costumes by David Woolard. The hilarious costumes for "The Circus McGurkus" are the best of the lot. James Kronzer seemed to design and execute his sets with the same brush stroke as Dr. Seuss, thus truly bringing the books to life. Plus we have Howard Binkley's glorious array of color and light for his designs. He creates a brightly multicolored hued world of light for the citizens of Whoville and other lands of Seuss. The wall of stars with changing colors completes the palette for Binkley's marvelous light design. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the choreography by Patti Colombo and John Charron. Their choreography is all over the place, with so much going on at times, you don't know where the focus is. There is no real creativity or imagination in the dance numbers. Bland and overused dance steps is what we see instead. This is not helped by the company members not dancing in polished, clean, and unified execution. Some performers are a beat behind the others, or just not dancing up to the tempo and energy of their fellow cast members, thus resulting in the numbers looking sluggish and unpolished. Cathy Rigby (of Peter Pan fame) wears the principal role as the Cat in the Hat. Having observed Ms. Rigby in the Peter Pan and Annie Get Your Gun tours, I have come to this conclusion: she is a performer who does not come out on stage filled to the gills with energy and stage presence. Instead, it takes time for her and the audience to warm up to each other, which can be taxing at times. Rigby does not possess a strong set of vocal pipes, but she does warble with decent results. Rigby achieves solid laughs with the stage business and sight gags that are incorporated into the role, but she is swimming in dangerous waters when working with the audience directly. Rigby has trouble coming out with great adlibs or remarks for the live situations that occur between her and the audience. Instead, some of her comments come off a little too planned, thus losing the spontaneity needed when working with crowd. She tends to say "I'm sorry" a lot when she notices that her shtick is not hitting with the audience. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy her performance very much. I just wanted more stage presence and energy from her work. It should be noted that the pixie Rigby does bring out her tried and true bag of tricks of flying ropes and harness from her Peter Pan days, which are met with cheers from the audience. Horton the Elephant is portrayed by Eric Leviton, who sings with heartfelt warmth as the elephant who has to deal with a speck of dust that has people on it, and an egg to keep warm. But while Leviton does sing with finesse, he shows nothing on his face. The role requires an actor to fill the entire theater with energy and facial expressions and Leviton does neither. His performance shows comic timing and he does get laughs. But looking at the role, you know it could be taken into a much more comedic performance. Garrett Long (Gertrude McFuzz) and Gaelen Gilliland (Mayzie LaBird) give the best performances of the evening. Long wins the audience's hearts as the blue bird who wants a gorgeous tail to woo Horton. The actress creates terrific magic with her dead on comic timing and soprano voice. Her solos are met with loud laughs and applause by the audience as well. The actress uses her face to winsome affect as well - observe her solid work in such numbers as "The One Feather Tail of Miss Gertrude McFuzz," "Amayzing Gertrude," and "How Lucky You Are". Gilliland, as the sexy bird with the long, billowing tail, owns a flawless set of vocal pipes that works magic around her songs. Most of her solos are written in a motif of Cuban dance or smokey jazz, and Gilliland is able to grasp both music genres and deliver the goods with success. Also delivering tiptop performances are Natasha Yvette Williams (Sour Kangaroo), Don Stet (Mayor of Whoville), Amy Griffin (Mayor's wife), and special kudos to the Bird girls: Danielle M. Garner, Cary Michele Miller, and Liz Pearce. The production is a very enchanting evening of theater for everyone, young or old. What you will enjoy immensely about Seussical is that it rejuvenates the inner child in all of us We have all read Dr. Seuss's books, so to see it come to life at the music hall, all wrapped in a golden score. You will love waking up the inner child in you! Seussical the Musical plays at the Dallas Music Hall through June 1. Call 214-691-7200 or visit dallassummermusicals.org/ for ticket information. |
