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101 Dalmations, the Musical — Review November 23, 2009

There are three reasons to see 101 DALMATIONS, THE MUSICAL….1) Rachel York, 2) Rachel York, and 3) Rachel York. Playing Cruella DeVil she has enough energy for three shows — look out Glenn Close, your nemesis has arrived.

Rachel York in 101 Dalmations, The Musical.

Cast, kids, and Dogs in 101 Dalmations, the Musical

Ok, now that I got that out of the way, I can honestly say that I enjoyed the musical more than I should have. Any new musical is always better than no new musicals. But 101 Dalmations is not ready for prime time. It’s a shame — they have a lot going for them, including a great musical score, good performances all around, some very enthusiastic kids in the cast, and that knock-out performance by Rachel York.

But it has a lot of problems too. Seen in the Sunday afternoon performance at the Fox Theatre in Detroit, in a half-empty house, the audience young and old was squirming in their seats by mid-Act One. The 5-year olds were mostly OUT of their seats by that point.

And there’s the problem — when the show works well it appeals to both kids and adults. When it is at its worst, even the adults have a hard time sitting still. There is too much talk — WAY too much talk — like a half hour too much talk in this 2-hour musical. And there is actually too much music too!…It’s a terrific score that mixes in all styles of musical comedy-style songs, but there is too much of it.  Trim the show to 90 minutes without an intermission, and you’ll have yourself a tight family entertainment.

Then there are the stilt problems. To make the “dogs” (played by people) look smaller, the rest of the cast is on 15 inch stilts. It looks terrible. While the sets are creatively skewed to make everything look like you are looking at it from a dogs-eye view, the stilts themselves are ridiculous. Two performers fell during this performance — and I have to admit by the middle of the first act, I started to watch the stilt walkers (and dancers) to see who else might go down, sort of the same way you watch figure skaters, to see who falls on their butt. That was enough to distract me from what might otherwise be some fine moments. I’d suggest they cut the stilts and work on creative use of costumes to achieve the same effect.

And then there is the other major problem — there aren’t enough dogs. Sure the kids are cute when they dance — and the Bark Chain is particularly well handled. The directing is generally sound. But the real dogs are reserved for dog tricks at the end of the acts, and there isn’t enough — the tricks are fun! A dog pees and flowers grow. They have charisma — the entire audience comes to life while they are on stage. It’s too bad that the rest of the show doesn’t have that kind of spark of life.

Which brings me back to Rachel York. She chews up the scenery, sings her heart out, flays her arms and legs and manages to stay balanced, and just seems to be having the time of her life. Her demise is strange — I understand why they handle it the way they do — it IS a family musical with lots of children in the audience after all…but it’s an anti-climatic end to an otherwise great stage performance.

To save yourself two hours — you can see Rachel York perform her entire number called “Hot” here: http://www.the101dalmatiansmusical.com/index.html

I liked the show. I hope they take the time to fix it as it travels across the country prior to a three-week engagement at the Theatre at Madison Square Garden. It’s not ready for a full-time Broadway production. It’s a shame. There are a lot of good actors and technicians at work here. But in the long-run, it needs work, lots of it, and more real dogs. Even if they do nothing else but cross the stage from time to time with the actors.

Despite that, the audience really seemed to have a great time. The chatter at intermission wasn’t bad – people genuinely liked the show. And there sure is a dearth of decent family-oriented musicals these days. The audience reviews at Ticketmaster.com, for example, are almost all entirely A’s and B’s. That’s pretty darn good!…And you actually do leave the theatre humming the theme song. That’s not bad either.

In a surreal moment – the show ended at the same time the Lions game ended down the street. Lions fans and families with toddlers mixed on Woodward in what can only be described as Detroit at its finest.