What's the problem with Little Mermaid??

It's just doesn't transfer to stage well. The script fleshed out from the 90 minute movie becomes very week. Only a few of the new songs are good. The Junior Version is much better...because it's only 75 minutes long. The current tour out is pretty bad, and it's not the performers...it's the show (and I love the film)

I agree too that the story just doesn't lend itself to being padded to 2 and a half hours. And as much as I love Alan Menken, I find time and time again anytime he writes new material for a property of his that was a film adapted to the stage, it's just very very forgettable. "She's In Love" is very fun but Scuttle's songs are atrocious and the ballads all run together as blander variations of "Part of Your World" and then takes away the power and beautiful simplicity of the melody of "Part of Your World"

And really, it's just one of those cartoons where everything was written FOR the freedom that animation allows. Part of Your World is gorgeous cause she's truly swimming and the music matches her flowing hair etc. Poor Unfortunate Souls is so lively and frightening in animated form as is Ursula period. Ursula in the film is very funny but she is also GENUINELY scary, which I found in the Broadway show she was not. She was camp and nothing else.

The thing about the whole singing contest replacing Vanessa thing is that they could have had BOTH if they REALLY wanted. They kinda TRIED to do that with having the singing stop him from kissing Ariel but.... okay that doesn't work because he has already chosen Ariel. To have him then hesitate when he hears the voice does not show the strength of his feelings for Ariel, even if he throws out a, "she's to late" comment. He still hesitates.

How to fix this, keeping both ideas?

Have Vanessa actually physically show up and sing at the contest. You can put an ensemble woman in a black wig and play the Ariel audio, they were already half doing that. Have Eric be drawn to her as if in a trance and declare her the winner, having Sebastian or Scuttle make a comment from the side like "Look at that around her neck! The shell! It must be Ursula!" Exchange some looks between her and Ariel. That evil looks of victory from Vanessa/Ursula and at first in Ariel we see defeat but it turns to determination as she steps forward and dances. Everyone laughs at her like they have already written but she only keeps dancing as they laugh, but Eric is not laughing. She is able to snap him out of his trance because it wasn't about the voice, it was about Ariel. Even without her voice, she still speaks to him through Ursula's magic influence.

There! You can keep Vanessa and the contest (even through the contest is still super dumb) but it adds some much needed suspense to the moment.

What I felt the problem with The Little Mermaid on stage was that it was sterile and felt like a paint by numbers style of musical. The sets were too gaudy and the mermaid costumes weren't effective. The singing competition cheapened the mood, basically making Eric look like a jerk than someone who we root for to end up with Ariel like we did in the movie. The modern references in "She's In Love" is too distracting. How can you add "sashimi" into the lyrics.



Now onto Ursula. Ursula is one of my favorite Disney villains tied with Gaston. Ursula is the opposite of everything. As a woman she comes across as manly and she is not like the Mermaids with her Octopus/Squid torso. Ursula is supposed to be a legit threat and actually scary in the film. As well as Flotsam and Jetsam who on stage were portrayed as sassy bitches instead of scary henchmen. Ursula actually cares for them in the movie unlike on stage she treats them as lackeys. "Poor Unfortunate Souls" is supposed to have that oomph and power instead of being the sugary mess we get on the OBC. Also, I've always believed that Ursula had to be portrayed by a man instead of woman. Her character was based on Divine..a man in drag. On stage Ursula is way too feminine.

If I recall properly, the problem with the little mermaid is she isn't happy living underwater and it curious about humans and she ends up falling in love with a prince after she rescues him...

Updated On: 8/22/17 at 03:08 AM

rattleNwoolypenguin said: " And as much as I love Alan Menken, I find time and time again anytime he writes new material for a property of his that was a film adapted to the stage, it's just very very forgettable. "She's In Love" is very fun but Scuttle's songs are atrocious and the ballads all run together as blander variations of "Part of Your World" and then takes away the power and beautiful simplicity of the melody of "Part of Your World"


*Cough Glenn Slater cough*

Also, it's hard to depict underwater creatures on stage. They needed a concept as brilliant as The Lion King to convey what was comparatively easy to depict in animation. And they didn't have one because... fish. Spongebob appears to just be actors running around stylized as the characters without animal costumes. We'll see what happens if they ever get desperate enough to make Finding Nemo a musical.

"She's in Love" is the best song of those added for the musical and in the original was adorable with a little boy and the adult sisters. It's just cute (and it's that written that way in the junior). But since they have revised the script since Broadway Flounder is now typically "a teenager" and cast as a young adult male, and it loses it's cuteness factor, plus they changed Flounder from being jealous that his "best friend" is falling in love, to this subplot that he loves Ariel...Yuck!

It's also one role that even in Junior version that loses it's punch when played by a girl. IMO the songs ONLY works with a little boy and older girls.

Recently saw the tour. Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King are able to escape the fact that the source material was made for children. The Little Mermaid is not for whatever reason... and that seems to be the biggest issue with it.

Granted it's been years since I saw it -- and I saw it during previews since official opening was delayed due to the writers' strike that year, so it's possible they changed some things after I saw it -- but I remember loving parts and being so disappointed at other parts. Little Mermaid was my absolute favorite movie growing up so being a Broadway lover I was determined to see it right away. My opinions line up with most others here but I think overall the reason is that it just didn't have the innovation or wow-factor some of the other Disney Broadway shows have had.

I was skeptical of how they would do the underwater scenes but after Lion King I had such high hopes they'd come up with something innovative...my response was meh. I didn't mind the heelies as much as I thought I would but I agree that some actors pulled them off better than others. I thought the underwater sets were so bad, almost something out of the live 30 min show they do at Disney World, not Broadway-caliber at all. It just looked like a chunk of plastic with things stuck to it (plastic pipe, plastic fork, plastic starfish -- just bad). That being said, the lighting was beautiful, and I loved the way they pulled off the scene when she swims to the surface when she gets her legs (on a wire swimming to the top of the set and then popping up on the stage on the shore), I thought that was cool. The costumes were pretty bad, particularly for the animal sidekick roles.

I remember thinking Ursula was just not menacing nor was her voice soulful enough, and I agree with other posters that a man playing her part might have worked better. I, too, was disappointed with the elimination of Vanessa's role (I always loved that part of the movie) and the addition of the singing contest scene was dumb, but that being said I did like how it ended up that Eric fell for Ariel despite thinking she wasn't "the voice" -- as in, he actually fell in love with her as a person vs. some mysterious voice on the beach. Sierra Boggess's voice was just beautiful, like Ariel come to life. I thought she was great.

As for the new songs, I loved "She's in Love," "The World Above," and "If Only" (the quartet is very beautiful) but, as others have said, Scuttle's songs were really weak.

I have seen all of the Disney shows so far. The Little Mermaid was one of my favorite Disney films, but I have to say that I rank the show near the bottom of the transfers. I do not think it transfers well at all. I remember thinking Sherie Rene Scott made a wonderful Ursula and there were certain other things I did like - including Norm Lewis and the young boy that played Flounder. However, someone forgot to write a part for Prince Eric, who literally does practically nothing for his entire duration on stage. Truly the only thing I can remember is that the actor had dark hair and wore breeches two sizes too tight, which caused me to have concern for his health. Act II was a real disaster if memory serves. The pacing is sluggish and the ending was such a non-event that I could not believe it was over and that Ursula was vanquished so easily. I kept waiting for the character to reappear and then they were taking bows and kept thinking "Was that it?" I just found it profoundly disappointing, especially given the source material. Disney could have splurged for some Act II spectacle.

LYLS3637 said: "Once they cast a younger woman as Ursula, you knew it wasn't going to be anything worthwhile. If any character cried out for a Edna Turnblad-treatment, it's freaking Ursula.

Or at the very least, cast a Bea Arthur/Rosalind Russell-type.



Mary Testa?

I haven't seen it, but reading the above comments makes me wonder, do you all feel that it might have done better if Lion King was NOT done?

Would this have been seen as being innovative without the Lion King comparison?