Review: FROZEN Thaws a Disney Classic at Pittsburgh CLO

One of the fascinating things about modern musicals is also one of the most frustrating: we are experiencing them as what Richard Wagner called a Gesamtkunstwerk. This is a term often translated as "total theatre" or "total work of art," meaning that everything involved, not just the notes on the page, are part of "the piece." The line between "design and Production Team" and "show's creative vision" begin to blur in such a case: for example, isn't it hard to imagine RENT without Mark's glasses and scarf, Angel's Santa suit and Michael Greif's Brechtian directorial style of "stage directions mostly read aloud" on a skeletal set? The direction is the design is the text is the show. The major Disney musicals have had this effect more than almost any other show, because even in the age of social media clips and "slime tutorials," Disney in particular has gone above and beyond in making its content readily available, thanks to proshots of most of their newer shows, Frozen included. You walk into Frozen thinking you know all the tricks and all the beats and all the clever design choices that made the show successful onstage... but here at the CLO, director Michael Heitzman has staged a clever non-replica production full of new choices and new surprises. 

You know the story by now, especially if you have kids: free-spirited Princess Anna (Daisy Wright) and cold, repressed Queen Elsa (Cate Hayman) have been orphaned and kept within the locked gates of their entire childhoods and young adulthoods. Now that they are grown, the gates open for Elsa's official coronation. The fact that Elsa is an ice witch with elemental powers has been kept from the public... and from Anna. When an moment of lowered inhibition leads Elsa's powers to flare and create an ice age around the kingdom, Anna must track down her fleeing sister and find a way to reverse the freeze, all the while navigating a love triangle between a rustic ice cutter (Matthew Hydzik) and a charming, ambitious prince (Kevin Hack). Also there's a snowman, but... you knew about the snowman already.

Other than perhaps in Encanto (where the main characters are more "matrilineal folk heroes" than literal "princesses"), I don't think there are any Disney Princesses more three-dimensional or psychologically complex than Anna and Elsa, which makes them a treat for actors just as much as the songs by the Lopezes do. Cate Hayman does more than blow the roof off with Elsa's big numbers (not just "Let It Go"), she totally embodies the ice queen's mix of empowerment and self-loathing. Frozen pretends to be a fairy tale but is much closer to the beats of a superhero origin story, and Elsa is the hero and the villain at once. Hayman leans into the requisite angst and light-and-darkness struggle any good superhero tale will lean into, making her a compelling antihero until her ultimate redemption. Playing light to Hayman's shadow, Daisy Wright brings buckets of charm and a perfect modern-musical-theatre voice to the princess's somewhat chaotic energy. The best thing about Anna is that she's never ditzy, dainty or dreamy: her undiagnosed-ADHD energy and subtle but unrepentent horniness makes her a character who is wonderfully relatable. (As some critics have pointed out, part of Frozen's cross-quadrant appeal is that Anna is all femme but also has "boy energy.") It's a role that takes musical theatre chops, killer comic timing and a good bit of physical comedy, and Wright knocks it out of the park.

Kevin Hack's Hans is a smoothly charming and very "default musical theatre lead" tenor performance, totally fitting the Patrick Bateman-like socipathy of the minor prince. (There were gasps in the audience- and not kid gasps, either- when he dropped his infamous villain line; apparently this story WAS new to some people.) As Kristoff, Pittsburgh native Matthew Hydzik effortlessly wrangles the iceman's mix of strapping masculinity and empathetic softness, not to mention a singing voice that is a dead ringer for Jonathan Groff's legendary pipes. Rounding out the cast is Kyle Kemph as Olaf, the love-him-or-hate-him morbid snowman sidekick. Working in full view behind a funraku puppet (it wouldn't be a Robert Lopez musical without at least one funraku character), Kemph lends the off-putting oddball a warm if somewhat oblivious energy, plus a series of unexpected belt-face-off moments that give big "Ethan Slater SpongeBob" energy.

(Director Michael Heitzman and choreographer Robbie Roby have clearly had great fun designing this show: Frozen's tone is sincere but tongue-in-cheek (closer to Shrek than Beauty and the Beast), allowing for moments of knowing levity. Roby's choreography is clever, comical and character-based throughout, from an intentionally corny parody of romcom cliches in "Love is an Open Door" to an unexpected mix of European, African and Indian dance styles for the courtly dancing at the coronation (shades of Bridgerton). Best of all is the Act 2 opener "Hygge," which sends up both Disney cliches and Nordic social mores. Roby sends his sauna dancers, clad in towels and goofy, anachronistic winter caps, through a mug-clinking tavern dance, a Busby Berkely routine, and then finally a classic burlesque kickline where the "nude" patrons dance with their towels as fans. Adults were whooping but kids were laughing and clapping hard: this kind of moment is a tricky needle to thread, but the undeniably raunchy sequence was executed with bright, positive energy and nary a leer or lascivious wink. The slapsticky energy reached the kids as the suggestive associations of a burlesque fan dance reached the grownups: mission accomplished. (And lest any prude complain, the "nude" kickline dancers are wearing colorful boxer briefs lest a towel slip and someone claim they saw something they shouldn't; if you saw it and it's bright purple, they're in no condition to dance.)

Frozen is a well written story and a well-adapted musical, but it's still a spectacle piece, so I'd like to close my review with props to scenic designer Tim Mackabee with additional elements by Adam Koch. Their creations went a long way towards making this non-replica production so successful, substituting the mountain-climbing sequence from the Broadway show for a sleigh chase and a wolf fight (which winks at and slightly parodies a certain OTHER Disney Broadway show with a wolf fight). The show's climax, a musical sequence staged on a series of moving ice floes, is kinetic and dizzying, truly conjuring the experienc of a Nordic winter storm. You won't leave humming the scenery in a show that has "Let It Go" and "Love Is an Open Door," but you'll certainly leave talking about it: "did you see that part?" So many kids leave these family-oriented shows talking about wanting to become actors or dancers one day; Frozen is a show where it's very likely some kid may leave dreaming of being a set designer, going home to sketch sets or construct dioramas with GI Joe, Barbie and Labubu as stand-in actors. May we all find inspiration where we find it, and may we find it indeed.