Review: FROZEN Is an Icy Blast at Benedum Center

When Frozen fever hit a decade ago, it was inescapable. No matter how you felt about Anna, Elsa and Olaf, they were quickly overexposed. Bizarre Frozen merchandise is still on the shelves to this day- Frozen cereal, Elsa shirts with no-context phrases like "Hashtag selfie!" Olaf himself has become a Christmas character, and lawn Olafs have nearly replaced Frosty decorations. "Let It Go" was a surprise pop hit, and propelled theatre actress Idina Menzel into a new life as "Adele Dazeem," movie regular and internet meme. Naturally, a Broadway musical was inevitable. The question is, given Disney musicals' track record of falling between brilliance and mediocrity, how would Frozen do?

The answer, thankfully, is "kind of awesome." The musical, running a tight two hours with intermission, takes what was best about the movie and amplifies it, while addding more material that strengthens this meat and cutting out some of the dead weight. (Bye-bye, trolls, ice cutters and snow golems!) Jennifer Lee's libretto is tight and smart, full of winking nods to the original movie and fun fourth-wall breaks acnowledging the changes made. Most successfully of all, it reframes the show not as a fairy tale romance, but as the only thing Disney does better than that... a superhero story. Hot take incoming: Elsa is a superhero, and the Frozen series is at its best when it follows those beats and tropes (albeit in 1800s European costume).

You already know the plot: ice sister (Caroline Bowman), normie sister (Lauren Nicole Chapman), ambiguously-on-the-spectrum snowman (Jeremy Davis), handsome ice vendor (Dominic Dorset), suave but dorky prince (Will Savarese). If you have kids, or are a Disney Adult, you already filled in every detail of their names and history just from those mini prompts. If not, surprise! It's 2022, you've been in a coma for 12 years and there's so much to catch up on!

The cast is fantastic, and there's very little attempt to replicate the performances or even characterizations of the film. Lauren Nicole Chapman is a comedic tour de force as Anna, imbuing the role with inner life, vibrant personality and a wide variety of schtick, tics and quirks. She is also without a doubt the horniest Disney princess ever, and her undisguised fascination with the male body sets her apart from chaster and more naive princesses in the canon. Her sister Elsa, as played by Caroline Bowman, doesn't have quite as vibrant a character, as Elsa's whole thing is repression and guilt. But when Bowman gets to break free of Elsa's stagnation and let loose with one of those famous power ballads, the whole theatre comes alive. She has big Scarlet Witch energy in the best way.

Olaf will always be a strange and divisive character, with his mix of naivite, philosophizing, smarm and peculiarity, but actor/puppeteer Jeremy Davis makes the character palatable, even delightful, with his portrayal. Playing the character straight and turning down the zany cartoonish energy a few decibels, Davis acts in conjunction with the puppet in the Funraku style of Japanese-theatre-meets-Muppeteering so associated with Disney (and with the Lopez-Andersons, the songwriters of the film and stage show). Even so, he's not the most impressive puppeteer onstage; dancer and movement performer Collin Baja must be seen to be believed as Sven the reindeer. The costume, half puppet and half torture devices, physically transforms him into an enormous quadripedal reindeer, and gets gasps the first time he enters onstage. I have genuinely never seen anything quite like Sven before.

An honorable mention also goes to Michael Milkanin as Oaken, the jovial and slightly peculiar shopkeeper from the film's "big winter blowout" scene. Milkanin opens Act 2 with "Hygge," a number that has become one of my favorite Disney production numbers I've ever seen. It starts as a parody of semi-educational children's music, complete with "repeat after me" instructions to the audience, grows into a Jerry Hermanesque "live-laugh-love" polka about drinking and beating yourself with leaves in the sauna, and escalates into (I am not kidding) an elaborate nude kickline covered, burlesque style, with those leaves. The number is a clear reminder that the Lopez-Andersons are not just Disney's pet writers, they're also South Park collaborators. It's one of the silliest but edgiest things I've ever seen in a family show: clean enough for the kids, culturally specific and daring enough for the adults.

I've barely mentioned Michael Grandage's direction or Rob Ashford's choreography, but this is a Disney Broadway show: you know it's gonna be professional with a few coups de theatre per act. Unless you're a Disney hater, there's no reason to think anyone would have a bad time at this show. Go ahead and let the storm rage on... the cold never bothered Pittsburgh anyway.

To post a comment, you must register and login.