Okay, last night – The Grinch at the Performing Arts Center. Now, the Grinch is one of my favorite characters. Not just Christmas, of all time favorite characters. He’s a mean one. I loves me bad boys. But then he’s also a redemption story. And that gets me every time.
But as a holiday show, The Grinch musical starts out a few leagues behind for me. The stage show was written years later than the book or the tv special, and without Theodore Geisel’s assistance. The songs are fine. But just fine. When you compare them to the absolute genius of Dr. Seuss, what wouldn’t come up lacking? They throw in some of those great grinchy neologisms (hoo-honkas, fer instance). But otherwise the lyrics are pretty forgettable. And the performances have to be cartoony. It’s based on, you know, a cartoon. Squeaky voices and broad as a barn. Which is usually a recipe to irritate me. If you’re going to do this kind of thing, you can’t just do it fake. You have to really believe in the over-the-top performance with your whole heart.
And this Grinch goes green, furry balls to the wall. He was just terrific. Hammy as hell, but without the tinge of being ashamed of being a ham that always mars Jim Carey’s Grinch performance for me. I mean, there is absolutely nothing wrong with just going full monty and hamming it up. But any tinge of irony or over-thinking just ruins it. Make 'em laugh. And the Grinch is backed up with a Cindy Lou Who that is just as cute as she can be. Not stage kid cute. Actually cute. And they had the kids in the audience in the palms of their hands. The snow in the theater didn’t hurt. But those kids were just riveted to the stage doings. Me too.
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4 comments:
Really? You don't think Jim Carrey's Grinch is perfection? I just love the scene where he is selecting an outfit and also the one where he gets the Who invite and consults his datebook for possible openings in it. Okay, making me want to pull out my copy of that movie and watch it right now.
PS what did you think of Glee take on Grinch? Sue was good, rest was lacking IMHO.
Carrey's Grinch is just a little darker than I really care for. I don't know what the distinction is. Like Nightmare Before Christmas is dark but light (which I liked), and Ron Howard's Grinch is light but dark. Somehow for a kiddy Christmas story it didn't work for me tonally.
The Glee Grinch was just okay. Sue is just such a utility player, they rarely get her wrong. But the rest was kind of meh - EXCEPT for Kurt and Blaine doing Baby It's Cold Outside. That made me smile all over. In spite of my growing suspicion that I'm going to end up hating Blaine. He just smells a little bit of sulfur and eau de dictator. I could be wrong.
Yes, of course they are setting it up for Blaine to crush Kurt's little naive heart - and Kurt will coming running back to his Glee fam.
I personally like the dark Grinch - the darker the better, esp the back story on his school troubles and crush.
I'm totally prepared to hate Blaine's guts. Do you think they could actually make the football player bully + Kurt work? Surely not. Surely?
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