Reviews 2006
Reviews 2006
✭✭✭✭✩
music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, book by Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty,
directed by Allen MacInnis
Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People, Toronto
November 12-December 31, 2006
Most critics agree that Seussical flopped on Broadway in 2000 because the producers tried to puff up an essentially small-scale work to make it seem big. Now the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People gives the work its Canadian premiere on a more appropriate scale. This is the 75-minute version that creators Ahrens and Flaherty adapted for young people which rightly dispenses with the non-essential side plots of the original to maintain a clearer focus the Dr. Seuss stories about Horton the Elephant (George Masswohl).
The show is a delight. Phillip Clarkson deserves special praise for his wonderfully imaginative costumes, as does Michael Gianfrancesco for his colourful polka-dotted set. Michael-Lamont Lytle is the lithe-limbed Cat in the Hat and whimsical narrator of the action who encourages the imagination of Joseph Sevillo as the bright-eyed boy Jojo. Masswohl gives an utterly endearing performance as the steadfast Horton, ridiculed by the denizens of Nool for believing in the microscopic Whos and tricked into hatching the egg of the flighty bird Mayzie (a sizzling Cara Hunter). Corinne Koslo is a hoot as Horton’s loyal avian admirer Gertrude McFuzz. If only musical director Elizabeth Baird could manage less often to drown out the singing and Ahrens’s clever lyrics, the show would be even more enjoyable.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2006-11-23.
Photo: Joseph Sevillo and three Whos. ©Daniel Alexander.
2006-11-23
Seussical: A Musical