A platinum-plated Blonde
MUSICAL
Legally Blonde
4.5 stars
WA Academy of Performing Arts
Regal Theatre
Review: David Zampatti
Omigod you guys — it’s time to get serious!
WAAPA has staged a coup by securing the rights to Legally Blonde, the Broadway hit musical that somehow didn’t make Perth in its professional run in 2013.
It’s hard to imagine a better property for the academy. All the characters bar the lecherous law professor Callahan (Matthew Hyde) and the heart-of-gold hairdresser Paulette (the show-stopping Taryn Ryan) are age-specific for the young cast, and the show’s high-energy music and dance fit their talent and energy to a T.
First things first: this is a terrific show. You’d be forgiven for being a little wary of it — stage adaptation of All-American chick flick and all — but that would be a mistake. Legally Blonde keeps its tongue firmly in its cheek throughout, and all its saccharine is brilliantly undercut by overplay.
So what if the familiar story of blonde mall flower Elle Woods (Kate Thomas) and her adventures in and out of love at Harvard Law School don’t challenge anything, or change anything?
This is good-time-had-by-all musical theatre at its most refined and intelligent, packed to the rafters with sharp, highly referenced music and drop-dead gorgeous dance numbers (choreographer Lisa O’Dea really gets to let her hair down with these numbers and this cast). It’s sexy, quick on its feet, and very, very funny.
Whether it’s Paulette’s gloriously bizarre Ireland, the G & S Gay or European (he’s both, as it turns out) or the dance-crazy Whipped into Shape and Bend and Snap, these are songs for the instant rather than the ages, seamlessly integrated into the story and the show’s ebullient mood.
Backstage, WAAPA has pulled out all stops for Legally Blonde; Isabel O’Neill’s costumes are sumptuous, and there’s nothing more a Broadway production could do than ice the cake of Jason Langley’s direction, Steve Nolan’s set, Trudy Dalgleish’s lighting or David King’s 15-piece orchestra.
The boys do well in a show about its girls; Callum Sandercock and Joel Granger are handsome as Elle’s love interests, and Chris Wilcox’s hunky postal delivery boy Kyle has the best line of the show — maybe any show ever — “I’ve got a package” (admiring glances from cast and audience follow).
But Legally Blonde belongs to Ryan, Megan Kozak’s brilliant all-skipping, all-singing Brooke, Elle’s racy posse, Margo (Tayla Jarrett) Serena (Heather Manly) and Pilar (Jess Phillippi), and the girls (and boys) of its spirited chorus.
Above all it’s Elle’s show, and Kate Thomas adds humour, with traces of Tina Fey and Julia Zemiro, to her outstanding singing and dancing in a signature performance.
I’m always banging on about how much more than class assignments WAAPA’s shows are, and how you’d be mad to miss them.
And this time, I’m deadly serious.
Legally Blonde runs until June 20.
