Legally Blonde: The Musical

Overview

There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who think the movie Legally Blonde is awesome, and those who are wrong, so plain wrong. Reese Witherspoon's adventure as Elle Woods, the Malibu sorority girl who goes to Harvard Law for all the wrong reasons and yet finds it's just the right place for her, is a 2001 classic that's totally hilarious, surreptitiously full of heart, and a pillar of the teen girl-power canon.

And with all its exuberance, kitsch, and preposterous costume, it was ripe to make the hop from celluloid to the musical theatre stage. Legally Blonde: The Musical opened on Broadway in 2007 to widespread 'snaps' of approval. Now that show's original director and choreographer, Jerry Mitchell, has reproduced the spectacular on the Lyric stage with a knockout Australian cast.

Avenue Q or The Book of Mormon it ain't, but Legally Blonde is still a hipper musical than most and a great excuse to leave your cynicism and 'thinking brain' at the door for a night of giddy, gratifying musical theatre that will have you grinning like a golden retriever puppy. The numbers here are big and seductive. It opens with the all-in 'Ohmigod You Guys' as Elle (Lucy Durack) prepares with her Delta Nu sisters for an impending proposal from boyfriend Warner (Rob Mills), and the uber-catchy, always-apt refrain happily reappears throughout the show.

Things briefly take a turn for the wistful when its revealed Warner and Elle have their lines crossed on what it means to get 'Serious', as Warner dumps Elle to begin his fast track to political candidacy via Harvard Law School. He now needs a Jackie, not a Marilyn, he memorably tells her. Heartbroken, she resolves to become that serious partner, applying herself to her studies for the first time so she can blitz the SATs and join him at the prestigious university. But, as we all know, being something other than who you are is a recipe for disaster, and Elle learns that in a glorious, individuality-affirming way.

The only musical number that equals the charm of 'Ohmigod You Guys' is the courtroom drama 'There! Right There!' (also known as 'Gay or European'), but solid songs dot the performance, from Elle's turning-point mantra 'Chip on My Shoulder' to the energetic exercise routine 'Whipped Into Shape' from Brooke Wyndham (model Erika Heynatz making her impressive musical debut) and 'Blood in the Water' from legal shark Professor Callahan (Cameron Daddo), which drips with cartoon villainy in a manner reminiscent to Scar preparing to kill Simba. Occasional dashes of contemporary pop and hip hop are welcome in the typically Broadway broth, although the forays into Irish folk are a little stranger.

The performers really make this production, as they're beautifully cast. Durack, last seen as Glinda the Good Witch in Wicked, effuses high energy and total adorableness as Elle. Mills has well and truly come good in the musical theatre world since his Idol days, and he does 'caddish and slightly infuriating' really, really perfectly. Thesp Helen Dallimore gets sweetly garish as Paulette, and David Harris is a strong presence as Elle's new, better love interest, Emmett. The performers do well just to hold their own against the four dogs playing Bruiser and Rufus, whom audiences are clearly smitten with.

It must be said, however, that this Elle Woods does not rock as much as Witherspoon's, and it's through no fault of Durack's. It's that composers Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin and director Jerry Mitchell have increased Emmett's role to the point where he often stands in for Elle's intellect and morality, stripping her of her own agency, which drove her arc in the film. Now, it's Emmett who pushes Elle into reorientating her attention towards her studies in 'Chip on My Shoulder', rather than her making that change of her own reckoning, and Emmett even prompts her first legal victory, where she reclaims Paulette's dog. In return, she gives him a makeover (ugh). You can see why they've done it — to centralise the romantic plot for a mainstream audience and to theatricalise her internal journey for the big stage — but the consequences are disappointing to anyone who valued Legally Blonde precisely because of Elle's independence.

(Outside of gender politics, the creative team also seems to have decided that the source of Elle's pep is Red Bull, which seems to miss the point of the story's supposedly central message of embracing your true, natural self, whatever it may be. No?)

But that's already too much serious talk for a buoyant musical with sets that unfurl like pretty Transformers, costumes that dazzle, and songs you'll download to iTunes in secret. Its simple philosophy is that femininity can be a strength and not a weakness. And that positivity is cool. And that pink goes with everything.

This review was written about the Sydney opening night performance of Legally Blonde at the Lyric Theatre.