Frozen The Musical: Grab a ticket or let it go?
Our critic’s verdict on the stage premiere of Disney’s Frozen in Sydney on Thursday night.
Transforming an animated film into a satisfying stage work with flesh-and-blood characters is a complex, delicate operation. Two dimensions aren’t three. One isn’t the same as the other.
Sadly the transition hasn’t come off for Frozen, which lacks the heart-tugging wonder and enchantment you hope for from a drama driven by love, courage, near death and the elemental force of magical powers. It’s not the fault of the performers. Michael Grandage’s production has them working hard and makes it looks like hard work.
Frozen begins well, if a little too leisurely. Princess Elsa and Princess Anna of Arendelle are ideal playmates, different in character but close. Played with winning ebullience on opening night by Deeana Cheong Foo and Chloe Delle-Vedove, they are inseparable until Elsa’s inconvenient ability to freeze things gets in the way.
The royal parents die in an underwhelming storm at sea, Elsa becomes queen, the sisters grow up to become Jemma Rix and Courtney Monsma, Elsa has to leave town in a hurry and the show’s focus melts like yesterday’s snow.
There are townsfolk after Elsa’s blood. There’s Olaf the snowman (Matt Lee) who provides comic relief. There is the rustic ice-dealer — no, not that kind — Kristoff (Sean Sinclair), who helps Anna on her quest to find Elsa. There is Anna’s eager beau Hans (Thomas McGuane), who stays behind to look after Arendelle, and Kristoff’s unusual relations, who look like escapees from Skull Island.
The Hidden Folk do, however, get to sing the fun Fixer Upper, which was featured in the movie and has unpretentious charm. No such luck with a new song, Hygge, featuring sauna-lovers cavorting ostensibly in the nude. Ugge.
It’s surplus to dramatic requirements and presumably there for the adults, along with the enthusiastic pashing between Monsma’s indefatigably perky Anna and McGuane’s glossily coiffured Hans. That, and one or two overtly sexualised gestures, suggest that Frozen hasn’t found that tricky, lucrative sweet spot of appealing equally to children and their guardians.
It goes without saying that the musical highlight is Let It Go, Elsa’s rousing anthem of personal empowerment, and Rix, who is the goods, hits it out of the park accompanied by a flurry of lighting effects and a coup de costume.
But for all that she has the indispensable central number and is Frozen’s most interesting figure, Elsa cedes the lion’s share of stage time to one-note Anna. The balance is out and any depths Frozen may have had are well hidden beneath the ice.
Frozen. Music and lyrics by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. Book by Jennifer Lee. Based on the Disney film. Capitol Theatre, Sydney. Tickets: $49.90-$199.50. Bookings: 1300 558 878 or online. Duration: 2hr 10min including interval. Booking to March 21.
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