Exiting the opening performance of \u201cIf\/Then\u201d at Paramount Theatre on Tuesday night, an adolescent girl was excitedly sharing with her companions her adoration of the musical\u2019s star, Idina Menzel.<\/p>\n
She listed her favorite Menzel roles \u2014 the original witch Elphaba in the Broadway smash \u201cWicked,\u201d for which she won a Tony Award. The voice of Queen Elsa in the Disney fantasia \u201cFrozen.\u201d Lea Michele\u2019s mother in TV\u2019s \u201cGlee.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf\/Then\u201d did not disappoint this besotted fan, and she won\u2019t be alone among Menzel\u2019s legion of (mostly female) admirers who\u2019ve grown up singing along to her Grammy-winning soundtracks.
\nTheater review
\n\u2018If\/Then\u2019<\/p>\n
Book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey, music by Tom Kitt. Through Sunday, Nov. 8, Paramount Theatre, 900 Pine St., Seattle; tickets from $34 (877-784-4849 or stgpresents.org)<\/p>\n
In this show, which premiered on Broadway in 2014 and ran a year, there\u2019s a double dose of Menzel as two versions of the same woman, Elizabeth. And there are plenty of soaring ballads in Tom Kitt\u2019s string-laced, pop-friendly score, tailored to her powerhouse voice.<\/p>\n
Ironically, the main weakness in Brian Yorkey\u2019s book for \u201cIf\/Then\u201d is its bifurcated central character. Unless you overlook a few things, and despite Menzel\u2019s star presence and vocal prowess, Elizabeth is not compelling company. She\u2019s self-absorbed, whiny, annoyingly insecure \u2014 \u201ca neurotic mess,\u201d despite everyone telling her how fabulous she is.<\/p>\n
Though this gal is having an early midlife crisis, \u201cIf\/Then\u201d is far more like an urban fairy tale than real life. There\u2019s some suffering and loss, yes, but also comforting\/cloying cliches about love at first sight, trusting fate and being all you can be.<\/p>\n
The show\u2019s book by Yorkey (who grew up in Issaquah, and with Kitt also created the superior Tony-honored musical, \u201cNext to Normal\u201d), adopts a gambit similar to \u201cSliding Doors,\u201d a 1998 film about a woman who would lead different lives if she catches, or misses, a particular train.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a bit more complicated with Elizabeth, who in her late 30s arrives in an idealized New York City after a divorce. If she takes one path she\u2019ll become Beth, the instantly successful city planner \u2014 which here seems a rather glamorous occupation. On another path, she\u2019ll be Liz, mother of two and wife of a near-perfect and slightly square (hey, he\u2019s from Nebraska!) Army doctor, Josh (appealing James Snyder).<\/p>\n
On both alternating, sometimes intersecting trajectories, Liz\/Beth has a pair of sit-comish, butt-inski friends with their own relationship issues: sassy black lesbian teacher Kate (played with verve by top-notch belter LaChanz) and nebbishy, bisexual housing activist Lucas (Anthony Rapp, who earlier co-starred with Menzel in \u201cRent\u201d).<\/p>\n
They hover as Liz\/Beth gets \u201clost in what might be,\u201d and overthinks her life in should\u2019ve-could\u2019ve songs (\u201cWhat If,\u201d \u201cSome Other Me\u201d). The take-away may be that modern women have many options, and \u201cWe\u2019re always starting over.\u201d But it takes a lot of show to impart the obvious.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s rare for a national tour to feature four original leads as \u201cIf\/Then\u201d does, and their palpable rapport is a treat. The dual realities may confuse at first, but are mostly staged fluidly by director Michael Greif, on a swift-changing modular set by Mark Wendland enhanced by projections of Manhattan locales, as well as subway and street maps. Choreographer Larry Keigwin deftly threads dance through small-ensemble street scenes set in urban oases like Bryant Park.<\/p>\n
Once again, the vocal amplification at the Paramount ranges from fine to muddy to blasting. With big show voices like these, maybe turning the mikes off occasionally would help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Exiting the opening performance of \u201cIf\/Then\u201d at Paramount Theatre on Tuesday night, an adolescent girl was excitedly sharing with her companions her adoration of the musical\u2019s star, Idina Menzel. She listed her favorite Menzel roles \u2014 the original witch Elphaba in the Broadway smash \u201cWicked,\u201d for which she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[36,40],"class_list":["post-598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-36","tag-ifthen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-9E","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":599,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions\/599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}