Review: Frozen the Musical opening night at Festival Theatre Adelaide

Frozen the Musical has arrived in Adelaide – and it’s sure to melt the coldest of hearts. Read our review of the opening night performance here.

Have you lost count of the times you’ve seen Frozen, thanks to your child’s obsession with Elsa? And think you can’t (let it) go there again?

Or maybe you’ve never seen the 2013 Oscar-winning movie, which writer Jennifer Lee loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, and are not in a hurry to.

Either way, you need to run to the Festival Theatre to catch Frozen the Musical.

It’s not just for little ones or big kids.

Corny as it sounds, it will melt even the coldest of hearts.

Pictures: Frozen the Musical

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There is so much to love about it, from the moment we are introduced to our two heroines as children.

Amya Mollison and Hunter Ribeiro, as young Elsa and Anna on opening night, are both the perfect mini me of the stars of the show, Jemma Rix and Courtney Monsma.

Mollison is seriously good as the big sister Elsa, who is shattered when she accidentally harms her younger sibling, while Ribeiro is delightfully animated as goofball Anna.

Which brings me to Rix and Monsma.

Jemma Rix in Frozen the Musical. Picture: Lisa Tomasetti

From the first line Rix sings, “Do you want to build a snowman”, her stunning vocals give you chills.

Her stage presence and delivery of Elsa’s anthem, Let It Go by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez – and the stunning transformation within it and accompanying costume change – are nothing short of mesmerising.

Hers is a truly regal performance. She’s haunted and haunting.

Monsma, on the other hand, seems to have stepped out of a cartoon, complete with eye gymnastics.

With brilliant comic timing and sparkling soprano vocals, she is Disney personified.

And, while the two portrayals are so very different, they magically work together to create Frozen’s central act of true love – the celebration of sisterhood and being unapologetically you.

But there is, of course, also a love story in the plot, in the form of Anna’s love triangle, which plays out like the best rom-coms.

Courtney Monsma and Sean Sinclair as Anna and Kristoff. Picture: Lisa Tomasetti

Thomas McGuane and Sean Sinclair, as Anna’s leading men, Hans and Kristoff, are wonderfully loathable and loveable.

The more obvious villain of the piece, Aljin Abella’s Weselton, brings the laughs.

As does the comic relief of a Busby Berkeley-esque and rather risque (by Disney standards) dance routine.

It’s one of the more blatant signs that the musical is playing to adults rather than children.

That said, like all good family-friendly entertainment, the show’s raunchy humour goes over kids’ heads.

Olaf is brilliantly and hilariously brought to life by Matt Lee, who shares the stage with the snowman – proving puppeteers can still be seen and work their magic.

Jemma Rix, Matt Lee and Courtney Monsma as Elsa, Olaf and Anna. Picture: Lisa Tomasetti

The character of Sven is equally captivating. It feels like there’s a lot going on behind the reindeer’s eyes. It is just one man making all the moves with equal parts gusto and gracefulness – Lochie McIntyre on opening night.

The adaptation of the trolls, to the indigenous Hidden Folk, and the ensemble’s performances are also superb.

The spectacular stage and lighting design, by Christopher Oram and Natasha Katz, is such a force that it too is a character – the audience applauded and cheered as the set morphed courtesy of lighting and LEDs (75 million, no less).
Elsa’s ice palace is beautifully breathtaking.

Jemma Rix as Elsa. Picture: Lisa Tomasetti

And, of course, there’s the sensational songs – the aforementioned showstopper Let It Go, Do You Want To Build A Snowman?, Love Is An Open Door, For The First Time In Forever and those written for the musical, such as What Do You Know About Love? and the magnificent Monster.

With its themes of overcoming isolation, being true to oneself and the transformative power of love, the not-to-be-missed Frozen the Musical is, as I overheard one theatregoer say, “just what everybody needs with everything that is going on in the world right now”.