Mixed-Negative from Talkin' Broadway:
"This isn't to say that Zambello and company don't hit on some visually satisfying moments, if only by the law of averages. There are times that the arrangements of actors and set pieces recall nautical maps and Renaissance oil paintings, giving the show a suavely stylistic sense of time and place. And despite the bargain-basement look of actors rolling around on Heely-like shoes to simulate swimming, it gives the undersea scenes a fervently fluid look that doesn't waterspout you back to the surface. This is unquestionably the prettiest ugly show in town.
What's missing is any sense of the kind of magic and wonder that the better Disney stage shows trade on, and even lesser Disney animated films can manage in spades. There are no anthropomorphic candlesticks with burning hands or gravity-defying transformations a la Beauty and the Beast; and Zambello hasn't found a way to stage the film's unstageable moments (such as a terrifying storm or a fraught confrontation between a ship and a skyscraping octopus) with the go-for-broke creativity Julie Taymor brought to the Broadway version of The Lion King.
This is sufficient to send The Little Mermaid swimming circles around the other Disney stage ventures Aida, Tarzan, and Mary Poppins in terms of general attractiveness and appropriateness, if it's never enough to make it a good show. The book by Tony winner Doug Wright and the new songs by Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater gently expand the original story without ever improving it, give it more laughs and more music without ever making it funnier or more tuneful."
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/LittleMermaid.html
