Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Review of "Seussical"

Saturday, December 02, 2000

By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic

NEW YORK -- What's not to like?

I begin this way because, as I sit at a friend's house the morning after the opening of "Seussical the Musical," I hear rumbles of negative reviews. I won't read them until I've finished my own, but they're in the air here in Gomorrah on Hudson, where every opinion is magnified by self-importance

So maybe I need a disclaimer: I went Thursday night wanting to like "Seussical." There are several good reasons. A newspaper critic should always go expecting to have a good time, unless he's burned out, in which case he's in the wrong job. There's also my love of Dr. Seuss, whose whimsy has a degree of verbal arabesque that tickles my thinker, along with a saving edginess that keeps sentiment under control. And "Seussical" is most fully the creation of Pittsburgh composer Stephen Flaherty and his lyricist partner Lynn Ahrens. I loved their work on "Ragtime" and expected to like it here.

As I do, very much. Among "Seussical's" substantial virtues is a score that pours out some 32 musical numbers, interwoven cunningly from a brisk, jaunty, "gee I'm glad to be here!" overture to a joyous encore, a "Green Eggs and Ham" chant/dance that serves as curtain call and finale. Flaherty's melodic generosity is nonstop, with plenty of rhythmic and stylistic variety. His invention is matched by Ahrens, whose lyrics have the Seussian virtues of sprightliness, nuttiness, rumbleacious shimmy and ear-tickling rhyme. You can't tell what's Ahrens and what's Seuss, which is as it should be.

The delights include the Seussian world view, sort of Fred Rogers spiced with subversive humor. Not to like the result would take not a Grinch (the Grinch is a huge softy, anyway) but certainly a curmudgeon or a very astringent aesthete.

By the way, the Grinch appears, but as a comical Whoville tradition, starring in the same old Christmas pageant every year -- evidence that Flaherty and Ahrens aren't hung up on Seussian orthodoxy. They have their own wits about them. And you can spot their family feeling in the references to Pittsburgh, which has an earthy/funny sound to match Kalamazoo, Weehauken and Shark River Falls (Ahrens' home town).

The show's positives include some endearing performances and much of the choreography and design. The drawbacks are mainly in structure and storytelling. Even at just 2 1/4 hours, it could stand being shorter. But this won't have much impact on an audience predisposed to enjoy.

I had the advantage of having seen the show before -- not during the troubled Boston tryout, in which case I'd be burbling about how much brighter and sweeter it's become -- but just 12 days ago with the PG Show Plane. Since then it has picked up pace and assurance, but seeing the preview mainly enabled me to be clearer about the story line. Although sometimes in danger of doing too much and losing its essential thread, that story is really clear enough.

The thread is two tales of Horton the Elephant, keeper of both the invisible world of Who and an improbable egg. Add Horton's lovelorn neighbor, Gertrude McFuzz, invoke the Cat in the Hat as instigator-in-chief, follow young JoJo of Whoville off to war and Horton to the Cirkus McGurkus, then stir in obstreperous monkeys and a Sour Kangaroo (these last don't do much for me), and you have a Seussian layer cake whose only drawback is a few too many layers. The "Green Eggs and Ham" encore serves as finale because "Seussical" doesn't have one in the usual sense, which brings me to the heart of the matter: It is most Seussical when small. For all its feathers and swirl, color and bounce, it fully succeeds when it narrows down to one creature or two, singing something personal and precise. That creature is most usually Horton or Gertrude, but Mayzie, JoJo, the Mayor and his wife and General Genghis Kahn Schmitz also have their moments -- as does the Cat in the Hat, but that's a separate paragraph.

That smallness should succeed is a neat fit with the story, which, in its Whoville thread, insists that "a person's a person no matter how small." Consider the improbable show-stopper in Act 2. Gertrude finally tells Horton of her secret passion in a delicious little comic torch song and, as an understated coda, reveals she has also saved Whoville. Freeze on bird, elephant and clover. And the audience (both times I saw it) goes wild. Why? Because comedy and sentiment precisely merge in a person-sized epiphany.

Show biz pizzazz has something to do with it, too. If there's any justice (and as the Cat tells us, don't assume there is), "Seussical" ought to make a star out of Janine LaManna, whose Gertrude is a perfectly calculated miniature, blending sly comedy with mousy sex appeal. It can't do as much for Kevin Chamberlin, the marvelous moon-faced Horton, because he's already known from his feeling, Tony-nominated work last year in "Dirty Blonde." Although a big man, Chamberlin is a study in delicacy -- slow smile, rumpled shrug and an indomitable, unyielding spirit.

The nominal lead is David Shiner as the Cat, and because he's no song-and-dance man, his leadership of the opening number, "The Thinks You Can Think," is shaky. He's more at home with the razzle-dazzle antics of his own Cat number (whizzy choreography by Kathleen Marshall), and then he really relaxes into the series of impersonations and interventions that you'd expect from a world-class clown. His cameos are priceless -- jittery interviewer, Seussebies auctioneer, Latin lounge lizard, matter-of-fact McGurkus or sidebox commentator, always with a glint ready to comment disrespectfully about audience or show.

Making a big hit in a small (physically speaking) role is Alice Playten, who may be the only actor around who could get a laugh on her first line: "I'm his wife." Her husband, the Mayor of Whoville, is given just the right busy smarm by Stuart Zagnit, while Erick Devine is a giant cartoon as Gen. Schmitz. Among the most accomplished work is Pawk's as the ostentatiously curvy Mayzie, wringing wry comic detail out of every twitch.

Marshall's choreography is best when funniest. I'm not impressed with the Jungle of Nool number or "McElligot's Pool," because, although they add color and size and the fish are funny, they don't play to the show's strengths. But Marshall's sure touch is everywhere, providing funny back-up work for the three curvaceous Bird Girls or deftly and simply staging touching solos or duets.

At those times the colorfully Seussian set provides sweet accents, such as planets in a spangled sky. But "Seussical" is first and last a people show, a small, funny charmer that hits false notes only when it masquerades as something bigger.