Word: disney
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...There were satisfactions in store: a rapturously received Carnegie Hall concert in 1974; Alone With Me and I'm Still Here: Confessions of a Sex Kitten, follow-ups to her '50s autobiography Thursday's Child; and her distinctive voicing of the villainous Yzma in the Disney animated feature The Emperor's New Groove and its Saturday-morning TV spinoff The Emperor's New School, which earned her two Emmys...
...previously, to put it politely, hadn't made masterpieces. This summer, Adam Sandler dispensed with his standard idiot character and his movies' gay-baiting infantilism to play a borderline adult in the rambunctious, satisfying You Don't Mess With the Zohan. Director Adam Shankman, who had slummed in Disney comedies about exasperated adults and the sassy kids in their care (The Pacifier, Cheaper by the Dozen 2), brought movie zazz to a pair of composer Marc Shaiman's tuneful parodies: Hairspray and this month's vidcast Prop 8: The Musical. Let's hear it for the prodigal sons...
...Shrek the Musical doesn't really do the trick. It's pleasant enough but lacks the theatrical polish and imaginative leaps of the best Disney shows. And I think the letdown may have been inevitable...
Shrek the movie differs from the animated hits that Disney has brought to the stage in several important ways. For one thing, it's not a musical - which means no Elton John or Howard Ashman-Alan Menken songs to build a Broadway score around. More crucially, it is the first of the computer-animated films to be turned into theater - which presents different challenges. The romantic sweep and handcrafted classicism of Disney's earlier films could in no way be translated literally to the stage - and that inspired directors like Julie Taymor (The Lion King) and Francesca Zambello (The Little...
...enough. Shrek got a surprisingly friendly reception from the critics, who have sneered at every Disney show since The Lion King, and it could have a decent run at a time when Broadway shows are wilting under harsh economic pressures. I wouldn't discourage you from taking the kids. But Disney does it better...