Shrek: The Musical is silly. The play is based on the 1990 book Shrek! by William Steig which became the successful 2001 DreamWorks film with the same title. The original Broadway production opened in December 2008 and, after a run of 12 months, the play went on tour and eventually landed here in Buffalo. The play follows the plot of the movie in most major aspects. Shrek is an ogre who is recruited by height-challenged Lord Farquaad to rescue a princess (guarded by a dragon) who Farquaad plans to marry to achieve his kingship. Shrek agrees to this quest in order to obtain the deed Farquaad holds to his swamp. Along the way, Shrek meets up with a goofy Donkey who becomes his companion on the quest. My favorite part of the play was the confrontation with the dragon. The dragon is impressive! Shrek rescues Princess Fiona (who has secrets of her own) and complications set in. None of the music is particularly memorable. But I found Shrek: The Musical engaging for a couple of hours. GRADE: B
I used to work in an elementary school library. I can’t tell you the number of kids who checked out William Steig’s SHREK (or Chris Van Allsburg’s JUMANJI, for that matter) and then returned it, complaining, “But it’s nothing like the movie!”
I can just imagine, Deb! There were plenty of kids at SHREK: THE MUSICAL. By their laughs, I knew they were enjoying all the fart and belching jokes.
It does sound fun for kids, but I could understand why it was not a big success on Broadway and closed at a loss: they were charging well over $100 a ticket and if you take a couple of kids you need to take out a bank loan just to see a soso adaptation of a movie you’ve seen a zillion times.
I liked the first movie but skipped the show.
Our presence at SHREK: THE MUSICAL can be explained with two words, Jeff. Free tickets.
Of course it’s nothing like the movie. No movie is like the book, New York and Hollywood can’t do that, it’s against their DNA as film / stage makers to have screenwriters follow the book. Sure there are reasons sometimes, but cutting and filling is one thing, keeping the title and a few scenes and making the rest from whole cloth something else entirely. What’s sad is the kids bringing the books back COMPLAINED that it was different, instead of saying it was MUCH BETTER than the movie.
As for this one, sounds more like a C- than a B, George. You’re getting too soft with your grades.
The cast was talented, the set design was clever, and the performance was amusing, Rick. I’ll stick to my “B” grade.
And “legit” stage certainly counts as A/V for Tuesday’s Overlooked purposes…not that this has been one of the more overlooked stage plays of our time…
Shea’s Performing Arts Center was sold out the night we saw SHREK: THE MUSICAL, Todd. So certainly there’s a market for this touring company product. The Shaw Festival starts this month over the bridge in Canada. If we see any of those plays in the coming weeks, I’ll try to put the reviews on Tuesdays.