‘FROZEN’ BROADWAY
‘Frozen’ on stage: Kid fun, but lacks in feeling
DENVER — A vista of the pressures faced by Disney Theatrical Productions fills the lobby of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts: Hundreds of bubbly children and unabashed adults dressed as Elsa, Anna, even the rotund sidekick Olaf. Deliver the franchise, these cosplaying, premium-ticket punters seem silently to cry. We want Sven the Reindeer! Bring on the ice crystals and the power ballads! “Let-It-Go-OO-O-Ohhh.”
And a few minutes later, when Caissie Levy belts out that song, when she dares to craft and hold that breath for a millisecond before the “Go” and make Elsa’s icy catharsis her own, half the theater just beats her to the note. For just a second on Wednesday night, Levy’s eyes flashed with the realization that befalls all wise actors playing Disney royalty: The characters are not fully theirs to own.
“Frozen,” the 2013 animated movie loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen,” has grossed well over a billion dollars worldwide. Tickets to Denver’s seven-week tryout of the musical adaptation (headed to Broadway this February) are commanding hundreds on StubHub. “Do no harm” wouldn’t just be a forgivable mantra, you could argue it’s a fiduciary duty to Disney shareholders. And no harm is done.
But theater also comes with its own responsibilities to the art form, to give audiences a shove into the deep, the profound, the personal, which is where we all want to go, especially when young. This currently is a very cautious and emotionally underwhelming show.
“Frozen,” the Broadway musical, features music and lyrics by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez and a book by Jennifer Lee (all three worked on the movie) and is firmly aimed at the family market. There is no profanity, nary a hint of sexual suggestion and few ironic winks for adults. Director Michael Grandage’s production takes no bold leaps. The two leads — Levy as wound-tight Elsa and Patti Murin as her warm-centered sister Anna — are fine performers both. The hunky guys (John Riddle is Hans and Jelani Alladin is Kristoff) are aware their names are not on the marquee, which is sometimes good — since “Frozen” is about sisters, not lovers — and sometimes not. There’s a funny comic turn from Kevin Del Aguila, singing a droll new Act 2 opener called “Hygge,” a spoof about those smug Northern Europeans.
Although spectacular, the set and costume designs by Christopher Oram are an uneasy aesthetic blend of Tivoli Scandinavian, “Game of Thrones” Nordic and cosmic. The setting for “Let It Go” is very much its own thing, what with digital ice sprouting from Levy’s mitts as she sings. Few are disappointed. This song is a star of the show in its own right; it is so, so loved. And, to Levy’s great credit, so well sung.
Sven the Reindeer — one of the best things in the show — is a gorgeously expressive, human-powered puppet from Michael Curry. Grandage’s transitions aren’t all smooth by any means (he is new to musicals and you can tell), but you’d expect that at an out-oftown tryout for a tuner of this size.
The show’s most essential current need, though, is to deepen and humanize the bond between the sisters. Their inner lives don’t yet reveal themselves, nor does the history of their lifelong relationship. Aren’t we all either nervously stifling our powers and gifts, thanks to our prior traumas, or living terrified of someone around us who might snap and freeze our souls?
Why was “Frozen” such a monster hit? As with the two women of “Wicked,” we’re all either one or the other. The rest is embellishment. Or noise. The first scenes of the show go awry because young Elsa’s accidental harming of Anna is rushed and superficially staged, thus Elsa’s self-imposed isolation, which must be borne in love and fear, lacks emotional intensity. Kids can understand pain if the show has the guts to show it to them.
Simply put, “Frozen” currently
puts its focus too much on things that matter less in the theater and not enough on the bond between two young women whose struggles and aspirations mirror our own.
“Frozen” plays at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts through Oct. 1 (www.denvercenter.org), then at St. James Theatre on Broadway from February 2018 (www.frozenthemusical.com).