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Review: 'The Little Mermaid' on Broadway

BY LINDA WINER | linda.winer@newsday.com

January 11, 2008

On the way into "The Little Mermaid," audiences - that is, little girls old enough to read - can enjoy a poster proclaiming this witty bit of mer-marketing: "Sometimes the hardest thing about falling in love is taking the first step."

Alas, it is even harder to fall in love with the show. In fact, the most amazing part of Disney's latest musical is its amazing shortage of originality - not to mention magic or cross-generational wit.

The adaptation of the 1989 smash animation, which opened last night at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, may well prove as immune to grown-up opinion as any since Disney introduced itself to Broadway 14 years ago with the overblown children's-theater spectacle, "Beauty and the Beast."

But theatergoers spoiled by Julie Taymor's boundary-breaking brilliance in "The Lion King" are not served by this doggedly conventional, well-performed, middling bore of a show.

Disney continues its admirable search for creativity outside the Broadway mainstream. But director Francesca Zambello and set designer George Tsypin - both from the progressive wing of grand opera - appear to have toiled mightily to come up with almost nothing new. Nor is there any sense that the movie book has been informed or transformed by the edgy intelligence of Douglas Wright, the author of "I Am My Own Wife" and "Grey Gardens." Stale sushi jokes, anyone?

Admittedly, the Heelys are neat. Instead of hanging fish and mer-people on wires, Zambello, choreographer Stephen Mear and costume designer Tatiana Noginova make characters appear to swim on those roller-shoes that have wheels in their heels.

Otherwise, deep-sea living is represented by what looks like shredded plastic shower curtains. The show has a seashell-soap-dish aesthetic, sprinkled with pearlized fixtures from a kitsch '50s bathroom. "Under the Sea," the jaunty calypso song that won an Oscar for composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman, now looks like a Brazilian carnival with a nautical theme. Day-Glo colors and lights are overused with the delighted indulgence of people who'd never been to a disco.

The storms and the shipwreck were scarier in "Tarzan," for all its problems. Worse, there is nothing luscious about the mer-folks' big tails, which wiggle haphazardly behind them as if attached as an afterthought.

Newcomer Sierra Boggess has both the creamy-voice lyricism and spunky spirit of a fine Disney heroine. Sean Palmer is suitably dashing, if a little mature for her, as Prince Eric. For the record, this version gives him a parallel fish-out-of-water story line. He doesn't want to be king, just as she doesn't want to be a mermaid. After she makes her Faustian pact to be human and gives up her voice, the two celebrate the language of dance in "One Step Closer," one of the less bland of the many new but familiar songs (lyrics by Glenn Slater, replacing the late Howard Ashman).

Into every Disney romance comes an enjoyable villain. Here she is Ursula, banished sister of King Triton (Norm Lewis). Think Cruella de Squid. Sherie Rene Scott, always good, does everything short of literally stopping the show to make a showstopper out of "I Want the Good Times Back" - despite being restrained in a costume that gives her Sophie Tucker thighs.

Tituss Burgess does the jaunty Caribbean-thing with gusto as Sebastian, but he looks nothing like a crab. Eddie Korbich enthusiastically channels Rhoda Morgenstern as Scuttle, but we find it hard to think about seagulls as vaudevilleans with striped stockings and big orange clown shoes.

Cody Hanford (alternating with J.J. Singleton) is thoroughly enchanting as little Flounder. And everything picks up when the delightful John Treacy Egan, as Chef Louis, starts chopping heads off fish for the feast while singing the joys of "Les Poissons." But Ariel is not nearly upset enough about watching her new friends turn her old friends into seafood. In a show that asks more from our hearts than our heads, that's cold.

Disney dollars

Ariel may be perky, but she isn't the big fish in the sea yet, at least not when it comes to the clams she's pulled in for Disney Theatrical Productions. A glance at the total Broadway grosses of Mouse-made shows since Disney first left its footprint there in 1994, according to BroadwayWorld.com:

The Lion King (1997-today): $547,992,686

Beauty and the Beast (1994-2007): $429,158,458

Aida (2000-2004): $165,928,398

Mary Poppins (2007-today): $69,294,009

Tarzan (2006-2007): $42,722,858

The Little Mermaid (2007-today): $6,484,747

THE LITTLE MERMAID. Music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Glenn Slater, book by Doug Wright, directed by Francesca Zambello. Disney Theatrical Productions at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 W. 46th St., Manhattan. Tickets: $41.50- $111.50; 212-307-4747.