MUSICAL THEATRE REVIEW:
SHREK: THE MUSICAL

JOHN COULBOURN,
Special to TorSun
22 MAR 2012
R: 3/5

Pictured: Lukas Poost as 'Shrek'

TORONTO - If you’ve ever found yourself thinking — and, truthfully, whom amongst us hasn’t? — that what modern musical theatre really needs is more fart jokes and the like, then take heart: Salvation is at hand. In fact, SHREK: THE MUSICAL (adapted for the stage from DreamWorks’ hit animated movie, Shrek, which was in turn based on William Steig’s kids’ book), there’s almost an entire scene devoted exclusively to the explosive release of noisome bodily gases from — er —  both ends of the human continuum, if you will. SHREK: THE MUSICAL opened a limited two-week run Tuesday on the stage of the Toronto Centre for The Arts, the latest instalment in Dancap’s ongoing subscription season.

It is, by now, a familiar tale — the story of a chartreuse-hued ogre named Shrek (played by Lukas Poost) who simply wants nothing more than to be left alone in his smelly little corner of the swamp. But thanks to the malicious machinations of Lord Farquaad (Merritt David Janes) — a conniving sort, long on ambition and short on everything else — he finds himself instead teamed up with a talking donkey (André Jordan) and launched on a quest to rescue the beautiful Princess Fiona (Liz Shivener) from the clutches of a fire-breathing dragon (given glorious voice by Erin Edelle). But despite the fact that Farguaad has matrimonial designs on Fiona, she and Shrek find themselves oddly drawn to each other, perhaps because of the strange secret she’s been keeping, since the dragon first locked her away.

Adapted to the stage by lyricist David Lindsay-Abaire and boasting a slew of tunes from Jeanine Tesori, working from the same broad musical palette that informed Caroline, Or Change, SHREK tries mightily to preserve the charming counter-innocence that made the movie such a hit. But at the same time, it tries too hard to blend that innocence with a cutting edge sense of modern musical theatre cynicism — and the result is such high-camp it’s not likely to be bested ‘til the Girl Guides conquer Everest and establish a new cookie factory.

Under the direction of Stephen Sposito (after the original tour direction of Jason Moore and Rob Ashford) with choreography by Chris Bailey (after Josh Prince), the extensive cast expends a whole lot of energy and determination bringing not only the story, but some impressive puppetry, designed by Tim Hatley, to life.

But while Poost and Shivener prove more than adequate to their roles, lending a certain touching awkwardness to their love story, others in the cast seem determined to define the chasm that separates enthusiasm from finesse. As Farquaad, Janes displays a certain absence of malice that does absolutely nothing to further the plot, while as Shrek’s mouthy donkey sidekick, Jordan gets so caught up in playing Eddie Murphy that he simply forgets to make an ass of himself.

But, in the final analysis, perhaps SHREK’s biggest problem is that, as a musical, it gets so caught up in trying to be all things to all people that it fails to be anything meaningful to anyone, instead exhibiting all the symptoms of the musical theatre equivalent of attention-deficit disorder, as it wanders off in pursuit of any and every laugh that crosses Lindsay-Abaire’s mind. And while some of those side-excursions prove delightful — a tap routine featuring Fiona and a brace of dancing rats is particularly blissful -- in the end, all of those little inside-Broadway references and all the sly double entendres, amusing as they may be, serve only to slow things down, lending the whole telling of the Shrek story (which, after all, is the reason we are here), a distinctly perfunctory air.