Shrek the Musical
Drama, heartbreak, romance and comedy: what more could you want? “Shrek the Musical” provides all that and more, reimagining the film series we all love through song and dance. For lovers of the Shrek series, a taped version of the musical performance featuring the world’s most iconic ogre is available on Netflix for viewing pleasure on a busy night. Although it was not manufactured for the screen, “Shrek the Musical” combines the joys of live-acting and everything Shrek into a rendition of cheesy songs and obscure costumes. It is not as enjoyable as the original film, but the quality of the live production is certainly worth watching. We still get the reinvented fairy tales that made the original Shrek series so compelling, beloved characters such as Donkey, Dragon and Fiona, and the delightful villain Lord Farquaad.
The show has slight changes in order to accommodate for nearly impossible feats such as casting a fire-breathing dragon and an actual ogre. However, the performance of Shrek, played by Brian d’Arcy James, is as close as humans can get to a terrifying green monster. The addition of Shrek’s parents in the beginning was off-putting originally, but now, we’ve realized that it is just really pathetic and sad—that only makes it more humorous.
Some of the characters from the movies are brought more into the spotlight, with a few coming off as more annoying than humorous. We found Pinocchio, a seemingly average character with a typical but witty tagline, quite irritating when played by a singing, high-pitched actor. He was not an integral character in the first movie, so it did not make sense to amplify his role when it adds nothing except for thirty seconds in an irrelevant song about the fairytale creatures.
Our favorite part of the show is when Lord Farquaad sings about himself and how great of a (not quite a) king he is. The actor in the Netflix version, John Tartaglia, performed “Welcome to Duloc” and “What's Up, Duloc?” with such passion that it’s easy to forget that he’s dancing in a kickline while on his knees. Some of the filler numbers are redundant, but the trio featuring three aging versions of Fiona locked in a tower did not take away from the initial purpose of the movie’s plot since we now know much more about her life from the other films.
This musical version of the classic children’s film series brings its own flavor to the original tale. Employing actors to portray the characters brings a depth that the animated version never had. We get to see the look in Shrek’s eyes as he gazes upon his beloved Fiona, the pure agony Gingy the Gingerbread Man endures at the hands of the evil Lord Farquaad. However, nothing really beats a sad Wednesday evening of watching the classic Shrek movie.