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July 19, 2013
Legally Blonde makes grade
TUTS starts its 67th season with a vibrant production.
TOVA G. KORNFELD
Law school was never like this! Of course, I didn’t go to Harvard for my law degree – but I did go to opening night of Legally Blonde: The Musical, which debuted at Theatre Under the Stars in Stanley Park last week. I was fully impressed by the vibrancy – and the sheer size – of the production. At one point in the show, there are more than 30 actors on the stage, singing and dancing their way through director/choreographer Valerie Easton’s fancy footwork. Their exuberance is infectious.
The musical, written by Laurence O’Keefe and Neil Benjamin, is based on a novel by Amanda Brown and a 2001 film of the same name starring Reese Witherspoon. The stage production opened on Broadway in 2007, received seven Tony nominations and then moved to London’s West End in 2010 where it won three Laurence Olivier Awards (British acting awards).
Elle Woods, the show’s pink-clad sorority girl heroine, with her pocket pooch Bruiser (played by Milo) in tow, puts the dumb blonde stereotype to rest. Freshly dumped for not being serious enough, Elle decides to follow her former boyfriend, Warner (Peter Cumins), to Harvard Law School to try and win him back in order to get her “MRS.” While Elle does have a 4.0 grade point average in fashion merchandising, she has to hit the books to ace her law school entrance exam and win a coveted spot in Harvard law’s freshman class. Against all odds (and with a letter of recommendation from Oprah Winfrey), she gets accepted. However, on the first day of school she’s shunned by most of her snooty, self-absorbed classmates, including Warner. After this initial rejection, Elle decides to focus on her studies and prove her mettle as a legal star. Newly minted lawyer and teaching assistant Emmett (Scott Walters) takes her under his wing and guides her towards her goal.
Elle begins her career as a law student by bowing to pressure and appearing in conventional drab lawyer garb. However, she soon sheds those sartorial restraints and embraces her colorful – and more genuine – self, reappearing in court to plead a client’s case in a hot pink number that highlights the moral of the story – to thine own self be true. Ultimately, she takes over the defence of a fitness celebrity charged with murdering her billionaire husband. Elle finds out she is the defendant’s sorority sister and is, therefore, unable to tender Brooke’s alibi (information that could destroy her client’s reputation if it was leaked to the public). To work around this obstacle, Elle finds gaps in the district attorney’s case and chips away towards victory with her fierce cross examination skills, leading to a Perry Mason-like courtroom confession.
Breanne Arrigo is fantastic as the legal beagle – this girl can sing. Cumins and Walters have fine, strong voices, as well. Andrea Bailey as Vivienne, Warner’s new squeeze, is the drab opposite of Elle’s in-your-face style. Cathy Wilmot plays Paulette, the hairdresser who falls for hunky UPS man Kyle (Jacob Woike), and their scenes add a blue-collar counterpoint to the ethereal Ivy League world. Community member Warren Kimmel does a terrific job as Prof. Callahan, the intimidating Criminal Law 101 professor who moulds his students into fierce advocates. His rich tenor sweeps through his solo “Blood in the Water.” Katie Murphy, who taught dance at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver for many years, plays a very sexy Brooke and is clearly the best hoofer on stage. Her physicality is evident in “Whipped into Shape,” a number in which she leads her fellow female inmates through a fast-paced skipping workout that left me exhausted just watching it. Murphy’s real life husband, Danny Balkwill, is the show’s musical director, managing a 12-piece orchestra. Their black Labrador, Bela, gets into the act as well, playing Paulette’s dog, Rufus.
There is a whole lot to like here: snappy dialogue, rainbow-hued costumes, big dance numbers, songs like “Omigod You Guys,” “Is He Gay or European” (good work by Alfonso Banzon and Daniel Cardoso as the closeted gay couple) and “Bend and Snap,” a Greek chorus, a patriotic red-white-and-blue trio and adorable animals – all proving that law school is (definitely) not just for “boring, ugly, serious people.” This really is an ensemble performance.
Legally Blonde is on alternating nights with How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, until Aug. 17 at Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park. Tickets, $19-$44, are available at the door, by calling 604-696-4295 or by visiting tuts.ca.
Tova G. Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.
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