By Liz Nicholls, .ca
There’s a moment in Disney’s Frozen the Broadway Musical, just before intermission, when you just can’t help cheering the liveness of a musical that challenges itself to bring to the stage one of Disney Corp’s hottest animation properties.
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An ice queen, with formidable secret winterizing powers she can’t control — “conceal it, don’t feel it” — has exiled herself for her country’s good. She plants herself in the gorgeous ice palace she’s built with her super-powers, throws off her indoor royal robes (and her indoor voice). Poof! There she is, in a sparkly white showbiz gown. And as Elsa, Kelly Holiff lets ‘er rip in a killer version of the show’s biggest hit “Let It Go.”
It’s sort of a cold-weather Wicked-style anthem. And it will be reprised late in the show by Elsa’s impulsive little sister Anna, played by the firecracker ice-melter Chariz Faulmino, equally strong of voice.
Frozen, which is all about magical transformations, whole kingdoms at a time, is no pushover for live theatre. For one thing the battalions of adorable little girls, heroine-worshippers in sequinned party dresses (and winter boots) in the Citadel audience on opening night, have expectations. They are ready for enchantment, and they are not to be denied.
The story, which takes Han Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen far far away from everything but its Scandinavian origins, doesn’t bear close analysis. Just warm your hands on it, and let it go: it’s about salvation by love, sisterly love that rescues a princess who never gets cold from her own unmanageable power to induce hypothermia in others. The bond between Elsa and Anna is severed by safety-conscious parents, who don’t reveal why, but make Elsa wear gloves. The former grows up afraid of human contact; the latter grows up in unexplained solitude.
It’s a narrative with a wild assortment of characters: spirited heroines, a dashing handsome prince with romance on his mind (but wait …), a pompous misogynist of a duke, a really nice guy with a reindeer best friend and a modest career in ice-selling, a snowman with a gift of the gab, dancing fairy-tale trolls with some medical expertise.…
Rachel Peake’s spectacular Citadel/Grand Theatre production of the musical, adapted and musically enhanced by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon) from the 2013 Disney animation hit, is theatrically ingenious and fulsome about the visual magic of the story.
Not that Frozen leans into environmental impact, but needless to say we have high standards in blizzards, snowfall and snowpersons in these parts to begin with. Big theatre and its big-budget resources, including a creative team at the top of their game, come into their own in Frozen The Broadway Musical. Since this is live theatre not film, special effects are actually special. Amelia Scott’s projections are dazzling stars of the storytelling, along with Jareth Li’s lighting, that conjure wild storms at sea, the northern lights, spring blizzards, snowy mountain ranges, giant icicles that frame the world, the particular way light filters through gently falling snow….
The projections and lighting have a play-date with Cory Sincennes’ set, a kind of playful pop-up storybook with interlocking set pieces; they slide onstage or arrive from above for form interiors at the Arendelle palace and, in later scenes, ice-bound caverns and wintry peaks.
Nothing much can be done with the hokey operetta-style preamble, the singing, dancing villagers doing the exposition, Ainsley Hillyard’s always inventive choreography notwithstanding. The palace family scenes clunk, too, on the vast Citadel mainstage, despite terrifically charming, confident performances by a couple of young talents with big voices (and careers) ahead: Georgia Kellerman as the young Elsa (who alternates with Elowyn Temme) and Aubrey Malacad (who alternates with Zeia Ayuno) as the young Anna. Their tuneful duet “Do You Want To Build A Snowman,” and lyrics woven with the narrative of the sister separation, is a knock-out.
Frozen the musical is an oddly formed piece, both narratively and musically. Suddenly Elsa and Ayuno (along with Olaf the snowman) will grow up when the score suddenly turns full-fledged pop, an oddball kind of time-travelling. And that’s when Peake’s stagecraft, with its attention to theatrical stylization, to the power of suggestion, to visual coups de théâtre that stick to your retina, comes into its own theatrical coherence.
Warm-hearted Olaf the puppet snowman is an audience favourite, not least because we fully see the puppeteer (Izad Etemadi) who manipulates him and sings a lovely ode to summer. In his warm weather fixation Olaf sets a standard in personal sacrifice that puts Frosty to shame. Sven the winsome pantomime reindeer (Richard Lee Hsi) dances in a spirited way that captivates us, along with his sweet sidekick Kristoff (Mark Sinongco), not least because we know there’s a human actor under those antlers. Theatrical expertise is why, in an elaborate production, an arduous mountain-climbing scene — as Anna desperately looks for her sister, and has a fine duet with Kristoff (“What Do You Know About Love?”) — needs only a rope and cool lighting to establish itself. This is a production that’s smart about when to say when.
Frozen has a major asset in Hillyard, one of the most theatrically savvy choreographers around. And the comically bonkers drinking scene in which a whole Scandinavian dance troupe, semi-clothed, emerges from a sauna in a conga line, with branches, shows off her powers of invention. The costumes by designer Sincennes, dozens and dozens of them, fairy tale suits and peasant dresses, velvet frocks, troll pants, sequinned showbiz outfits, are always fun to look at.
Peake’s production does the Anderson-Lopez and Lopez score (much expanded from the movie) proud, with a cast of strong singers and an excellent band led by music director Steven Greenfield. Holiff, who has a silky lyrical range and a belt voice that could knock out the power in Greenland, is everything you might want in an Elsa, including a brooding sense of inner conflict. And as a hyperactively perky little sister who’s spent way too much time alone, as she says, and is desperate for attention, Faulmino nails Anna, too. The meet-cute scene in which Anna tries too hard with Hans (Aran Wilson-McAnally), the 13th son in line for the throne of the Southern Isles, who tries too hard, too (they share a duet “Love Is An Open Door”) is amusing and charming.
But it’s the sister relationship — two sisters lonely for different reasons, one who takes charge of saving the other from herself — that’s the beating heart of Frozen. And it will thaw yours.
REVIEW
Disney’s Frozen The Broadway Musical
Theatre: Citadel Theatre and Grand Theatre (London, Ont.)
Created by: Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (music and lyrics) and Jennifer Lee (book)
Directed by: Rachel Peake
Starring: Kelly Holiff, Charliz Faulmino, Mark Sinongco, Aran Wilson-McAnally, Richard Lee Hsi, Andrew Cownden, Izad Etemadi, Georgia Kellerman, Aubrey Malacad, Elowyn Temme, Zeia Ayuno, Vance Avery, Sam Boucher, Andy Cohen, Jennifer Harding, Andrew MacDonald-Smith, Julia Pulo, Tahirih Vejdani, Stephanie Wolfe
Running: through March 2
Tickets: 780-425-1820, citadeltheatre.com
