Brantley hates The Little Mermaid

Oh dear.

Loved the shoes. Loathed the show... O.K., I exaggerate. I didn’t like the shoes all that much.

And the real humdinger:

Directed by Francesca Zambello, this “Little Mermaid” burdens its performers with ungainly guess-what-I-am costumes (by Tatiana Noginova) and a distracting set (by George Tsypin) awash in pastels gone sour and unidentifiable giant tchotchkes that suggest a Luau Lounge whipped up by an acid-head heiress in the 1960s. The whole enterprise is soaked in that sparkly garishness that only a very young child — or possibly a tackiness-worshiping drag queen — might find pretty.

The Little Mermaid: So How Bad Is It?

Oh it's bad. So bad, I missed In My Life. Essentially, Disney Theatricals has sunk its rabid teeth into The Little Mermaid, infected it with a terrible disease, and is forcing the maimed, grotesque beast of a show to go on despite being only a shadow of it's glorious former self.

As I watched in shock and horror, I longed for the adorable cartoon I loved in my youth. My heart ached to hear the same refrains that had given me such happiness - but this is not the same The Little Mermaid I loved so well. No, little Moxie, avert your eyes! This Little Mermaid is too sick to be saved, and if anyone at Disney had a heart, they'd put it out of its misery.

To list all that is horribly, horribly wrong with this production would turn this blog into a short novel. Here are just a few highlights:

- The ugliest, most non-sensical sets I've ever seen. I still don't know what all the plastic crap on that stage was supposed to be. Waves? Trees? No idea. Plenty of photos here.

- Humiliating costumes for the poor actors. The mermaid sisters' tails are so out of control, they hit each other in the face whenever they turn around. Norm Lewis looks like the toast of Coney Island. And Heidi Blickenstaff, I'm so sorry they did that to you. You are fabulous and everyone knows it.

- An uninspired, boring book by Doug Wright, delivered with utter lifelessness by a cast who I know can do better. Did they spend any rehearsal time on acting, or character? WTF? And yeah, Sherie Renee Scott is supertalented, but I cringed watching her with those awful, awkward tentacles. Terrible.

- Heelys. They don't look like they're swimming, they look like they're skating. Which makes the whole thing look like exactly what it is: Disney on Ice on Crack.

- They've taken some of the best great Disney songs and staged them with all the conviction of a shitty theme park ride. Under The Sea is mostly about a dancer shakin' it in a day-glo unitard. Kiss The Girl involves giant plastic spinning things, and a frog puppet that likely got rejected by Toys 'R' Us.

To make things even more maddening, there are a number of glaring solutions to the show's problems. For example, would it kill them to use some puppets? The actors are costumed as vague, bizarre ideas of sea creatures, and it is not working. Is that a seahorse? Or a crab? I saw eight-year-olds cocking their heads sideways, thinking, "what is that?" Hey, Disney, I don't know if you've heard of it, but there was this musical that really turned heads a few years back, it is called The Lion King.

As pissed as I am at Disney for being the embodiment of corporate evil in the theater, you can't watch this show and not blame director Francesca Zambello. From top to bottom the thing is a total mess, and what is most dramatically lacking is a cohesive directorial vision. I'm sure that many will have much to say at where she went wrong, but all I can say is failure, failure, failure. It is an utter failure. She has failed everyone who loved that movie.

**It is definitely worth noting, in spite of everything, that Sierra Boggess is a great Ariel. The best part of the show are the minutes she spends alone onstage, and when she sings "Part of Your World" it is, for a minute or two, magical.

Does Disney think large flying objects are more interesting than good performances?

Is it me, or does Disney design its productions in a way that ends up swallowing the actors whole? These pictures of The Little Mermaid look like the actors are getting eaten up by the set, and I felt the same way about Mary Poppins. Everything was so supercalifragi-ridiculous that I could barely connect with the actors over the general din of the production values. Like the message is "Hey, Ashley Brown can sing real pretty, BUT LOOK AT THIS HUGE UMBRELLA!!!" It feels so disrespectful to the whole performance aspect of live theater. How is Sierra Boggess supposed to command the attention of the 1,000 people in the audience when there's a GIGANTIC SHIP passing over her head? It's like the whole audience is at Disney World, riding the Pirates of the Carribean ride, and tucked away in back of all the fake puppet pirates is Johnny Depp giving an actual live performance.

Speaking of supercalifragelisticexpial-atrocious, these costumes look like the aquatic version of that number in Mary Poppins.



Whatever. Bixby is right - no matter what, it will still probably make bijillions, because it's got "that song". Sing it with me now: "I wanna be where the people are. Ask 'em my questions and get some aaanswers! What's a fire, and why does it - what's the word - buuuuuurn???"

Variety sticks it to Francesca Zambello

David Rooney is really taking director Francesca Zambello to task in his review of The Little Mermaid. Nobody gets off easy in his 10-lashings-for-poor-design review, but he really seems to have it in for Zambello. Check out my little mashup of his mentions of the acclaimed opera director:

Zambello has allowed emotion, charm and enchantment to be drowned in a sea of bewilderingly over-stylized designs... The joyous calypso frolic "Under the Sea" and gloriously romantic "Kiss the Girl" are wonderful songs but Zambello has compromised both with chaotic presentation... Despite Zambello's much-quoted creative choice of "no water, no wires," it's the simple wire work of Prince Eric's near-drowning in the storm or Ariel's underwater transformation from mermaid to human that come closest to engendering a sense of wonderment... if Disney Theatrical chief Thomas Schumacher's aim in enlisting Zambello and team was to develop another eye-popping theatrical event to transcend the kid-fare label, he needs to keep fishing.

Both Francesca Zambello and Asolo AD Michael Edwards (see Suckwatch: A Tale of Two Cities) are opera directors turned theater pros, and I'm glad to see Rooney hinting that a strong background in opera doesn't make someone a great director of musicals. The mediums have vast differences, and I'd hate to see a stylistic return to the 1980's because a new generation of opera/theater directors rely on sweeping, epic, gigantic productions instead of quality, character-based storytelling.

P.S. Check out Zambello's own website for a lot of pics of her productions. The photo gallery is really gorgeous, so it's not so hard to see why Disney was smitten. But is she really the best person to direct the upcoming First Wives Club musical?? Not so sure, Frannie, not so sure.

She really does look pretty cute

Snarkiness about wheelies aside, Moxie can't help but find lil' Sierra Boggess darn appealing.