Review: ELF THE MUSICAL at Beck Center For The Arts

Each holiday season Beck Center presents a child-centric show. The scripts are the likes of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, THE LITTLE MERMAID, and SHREK. These are selections that have audience involving stories, well-known music and lyrics, show-stoppers, farcical humor or dramatic intrigue, and the opportunity for choreographic creativity.

This year's offering is ELF, the tale of Buddy Hobbs, a young orphan who, one Christmas Eve, crawls into Santa Claus' bag of gifts while the jolly old man is delivering presents.

When he gets back to the North Pole, Santa and the elves decide that Buddy, as they have named him, should be raised as an elf. That would have been no problem, but the wee-little baby grows into a tall gangling man. When Buddy realizes, after overhearing a discussion, that he is a human, and though his mother is dead, he does have a living father, he heads off to New York City in search of Walter Hobbs, his dad.

Dressed in his Elf clothing, Buddy runs into all sorts of conflicts with reality. His father isn't interested in another son as he already has one who he basically ignores. Buddy falls in love with a beautiful woman who isn't interested in his affection. The department store Santas don't like Buddy exposing them as frauds. But...in the end, of course, Buddy finds love and love and more love.

Sounds like it could be fun. The movie version of the tale was a total farcical delight.

Unfortunately, the pencil thin plot by Bob Martin and Thomas Meehan sketched from the film, and the unremarkable music by Matthew Sklar, and bland words by Chad Beguelin, simply aren't memorable enough to hold attention and get the audience fascinated in poor Buddy's journey.

As a reviewer of one of the short runs the script had on Broadway stated, "the production is tinseled in synthetic sentiment and is instantly forgettable. "

That review did say that the show was "performed with a cheer that borders on mania." If only the Beck staging was farcical, over-done, or filled with the slapstick of the movie or even the ill-fated Great White Way show, it might have some saving grace.

The staging overlooked so many chances to go beyond the inane script and add some farcical fun to the goings on. This show could be a hoot, or at least, fun-filled.

Martin Céspedes is one of the area's most creative choreographers. He can make almost any script shine. Unfortunately, because of the one-tone music, he doesn't have the opportunity to reach into his bag of tricks and create fascinating visual delights. The bland pacing of the show also limits him as the production numbers have to take their cues from the philosophy of the staging. He can't have razzle dazzle dancing while the rest of the production lacks pizzazz.

That's not to say that the cast didn't put out full effort. It did. Lanky Tim Allen tries hard to make Buddy charming and likeable. Unfortunately, he isn't given enough "schtick" to have a holly, jolly time playing the role. Young Owen Hill (Michael Hobbs), has a great singing voice, but the quality of the songs he is given to sing just doesn't match his vocal qualities. Merrie Drees (Jovie) and Lily Warner (Deb) have nice singing voices.

The highlight of the show is Brittany Merenda's creative visual projections in which the stage's proscenium and inner prosceniums are a constantly changing display of holiday gift-wrapping designs.

Larry Goodpasture's large orchestra plays well and Beck's finicky sound system is nicely tamed by Carlton Guc. Steve Shack's lighting design adds a warm comic quality to the stage.

CAPSULE JUDGMENT: Beck's ELF lacks the farcical quality and creativity of the movie on which it is based. Part of the problem is the poor quality of the script. The rest is the lack of creativity in the staging. It may be a pleasant sit for some, but for others it will be a quickly forgettable experience.

ELF runs though January 2, 2021 at the Senney Theater of the Beck Center for Performing Arts. For tickets call 216-521-2540 X10.

Next up at Beck: LIZZIE, a sexy, bloody American mythology set to a blistering score of hard rock. Produced in collaboration with Baldwin Wallace University Music Theatre Program. It runs Feb 4-26.

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