‘Grinch’ musical: Stink, stank, stunk!
I’m no Grinch, but NBC’S latest attempt at a holiday musical about him might have made me hate Christmas.
NBC’S “Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Musical!,” which aired Dec. 9, is the latest attempt to adapt Dr. Seuss’s classic children’s book, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” for the screen. And it is definitely the worst.
The short children’s book was immortalized in an animated special in 1966, and any attempts to turn the simple story into a feature-length movie are futile, whether starring Jim Carrey, Benedict Cumberbatch or in this debacle, “Glee” alum Matthew Morrison.
A pelvic-thrusting, bad-punning, screeching version of the green curmudgeon was not what anyone wanted or needed in 2020. Morrison did his level best – he’s a good performer, but the part never should have been written.
“Grinch Musical” was grating, painful and pointless from its opening moments. The musical itself originated in the 1990s as a stage production, and if there was some enjoyment to be had for preschoolers in a crowded theater, it is solidly lost in a televised version. The score mixes in the classic music from the 1966 special with an original score, which serves only to emphasize how wonderful the original music is and how truly awful the new stuff is. There are ways to incorporate children’s voices into songs that are sweet and pleasant (see Broadway’s “Matilda”). In Whoville the children are practically screaming the lyrics, and the adults right along with them, as if the entirety of the score called for glass-breaking falsetto.
The musical uses the bizarre narrative device of having an old, anthropomorphized version of Max (Denis O’hare), yes, the Grinch’s dog, narrate the special, while a younger Max (Booboo Stewart) traipses along after the Grinch, sometimes strangely interacting with his future self.
The Old Max/young Max device is a symptom of the musical’s bloat, which is unavoidable considering the source material is an illustrated children’s book. There is not enough to the story to justify the run time of this musical, and so narratives and songs are added.
Despite a fierce competition, the worst part of “Grinch” is the creature himself. This interpretation of the character feels off from the start, the costuming and makeup choices are strange and off-putting. Morrison’s Grinch vacillates between a flamboyance and at
tempts at evil too sinister for a children’s story. As if trying to split the difference between Carrey’s manic take and Cumberbatch’s understated one, Morrison finds the worst of both worlds.
There is one good thing in this travesty, the clever set design by Peter Bingemann, which mixes large paper illustrations from the book with real-world elements, which gives the action the appearance of jumping off the page.
This version of the “Grinch” can be summed up in three words: stink, stank, stunk.