NOTE: MAJOR SPOILERS.
I also saw the preview performance tonight at 8:00 and can say that I was not at all as pleased as the original poster, and neither were the GRAND majority of people leaving the theatre. It was really just ok, but has AMAZING potential and can be fixed in time, hopefully. The show still has problems, although I expect that a grand deal of them have been fixed from Seattle and more will be fixed before opening.
The Score:
Eh...some songs RULE, others flat out S-U-C-K ("Travel Song", "Don't Let Me Go", I'm looking at you.)
The biggest problem with the score is never that not that songs don't work - they always WORK, essentially, but they don't always flow properly with the action of the moment. Some songs just don't have the energy to uphold the excitment of certain . For example, Fiona sings a solo when she, Shrek, and DOnkey escape from the toer and run from the dragon, but it feels more like a frentically staged ballad rather than a chase song. Sometime's Tesori's melodies don't reach the frenetic levels of fun they need to.(more on those moments like these later).
the Design:
The greenest thing I have EVER seen. But in a pretty way - the show is AWASH in color and looks great. The three turntable design is the coolest thing, and allows for a great deal of fluidity and awesome pictures.
The Actors:
D'Arcy James is a great Shrek. But with him therein lies the biggest problem of the show - in Act I, he does little to NOTHING. He sings TWO songs in Act I, the opening number, and the Act I Finale (two songs out of nine or ten)- that's it. In Act I, Shrek is just really a character that is sort of idle and along for the ride. In Act II, he's fully fleshed out and sings over a third of the songs in the second half. He's a much more sensitive character than in the movie, and James portrayal is belivable and likable. in Act II, se has a beautiful song about trying to confess his love to Fiona ("When Words Fail") and his 11 O'clock number, "The Wall", is the best part of the show. When he gets the chance to act and sing (the aforementioned songs, the finale, and the Act I Finale, "Who I'd Be") the show always works. I think instead of the lame "Travel Song" that he and Donkey have, if Shrek just had a solo that showed some depth in the middle of Act I, it would help the show tremendously.
Foster is fine. Fiona is well written in the show. "I Know it's Today" and "Morning Person" are her big moments and are highly entertaning and pretty awesome. ("Morning Person", especially, is very inspired, with a fun "other show" reference which hadn't been spoiled for me yet before I saw it, so I won't spoil it for you.) Her second solo in Act I, which happens as Fiona, Donkey, and Shrek run from the Dragon, is one of the most flawed moments of the show, where the action is consistently slowed down by the song, which is boring and feels more like a ballad than an uptempo chase song. The whole things should be cut and turned into a skeleton dance sequence (you'll understand what I mean if you see it) "More the the Story" has been cut (which is a shame, because I loved the song, but at the same time is a wise choice because it allowed Shrek to sing "The Wall" and be fleshed out and actually be the center of the story.) Foster and D'Arcy's farting duet 'I Think I Got You Beat", is awesome.
Daniel Breaker does NOT play Donkey as Eddie Murphy did and is one of the best parts of the show. He actually plays Donkey as sort of a "little miss thang", and doesn't overplay big moments. He's really cute and lots of fun. His first song, "Don't Let Me Go", is terrible and the old song ("I Could Get Used to This") NEEDS to be put back in because the new one is, as before with Foster's "escape song", too low energy for the action of the moment. The song with the three blind mice is wonderful and lots of fun.
Christopher Sieber is a brilliant comic actor, with an incredible voice. Both of his songs are real showstoppers. With all the Seattle buzz on his performance, I expected his "Duloc" number to be an extravaganza, but it's simpler staging actually lets him use his costume and choices to greater effect. Wonderful work. Expect a Tony nom.
Tartaglia does nothing more than the rest of the ensemble and shouldn't even be billed in a star capacity. He's funny in his bits, but no funnier or more memorable than all of the highly memorable ensemble (especially Haven Burton's mega-riffing Gingy). "Freak Flag" was awesome and "Story of My Life" was cute with the Chorus Line references.
The dragon is still an issue, because without Kecia, it now lacks a uniform voice, and it's such a shame because the idea and the song ("Donkey Pot Pie") are both REALLY great. The dragon is played by a giant puppet with six belting girls playing its tail. It's a very specatcle-laden scene and could be quite exciting, but sometimes when the girls face out, the six of them interact with Donkey in a way, and pull focus from the dragon head, therefore upstaging the giant dragon face, and it's hard to tell that Donkey is talking to the dragon. Really, as awful as this is, they just needs someone to sing the dragon offstage, and have the tail be its backup voices. There will be less incentive for the girls to draw focus from the giant piece because with that change, they would have to face out less. Hopefully someone will figure that out.
Direction/Choreography:
When intermission came up, I scoffed. "Jason Moore clearly is not ready to stage a musical this huge," I said. However, Act II completely proved me wrong. The big moments were inspired and fun, and most of the second act took on a more personal tone (a la' Avenue Q) and worked really, really, really well. Act II of "Shrek" is really good, y'all, and it's because Moore understands the heartof the material and can bring it out in his actors in the more intimate, personal moments.
But Act I, with its huge production numbers ("Donkey Pot Pie", the chase from the dragon's tower) just isn't staged or paced as well. And for most of them, you don't have Chrisopher Sieber's brilliance making pedantic staging and choreography seem intentional. REally though, in dumping the chase and travel songs, adding a good uptempo song for SHrek in Act I, and putting Donkey's old song back, it could work much much much better.
Shrek has major potential, y'all. Right now, it won't survive a critical barrage and like "The Wedding Singer" before it, has heart and potential but isn't tight enough to survive more than a year. If the big problems with Act I can be fixed, however, we could have amajor, super long-running hit.
Updated On: 11/9/08 at 05:54 AM
