Legally Blonde

Campbelltown’s Legally Blonde is a big ball of pink frizzy energy. It’s like watching an aerobics class on top of a Mardi Gras float while reading a Mills & Boon – and I mean that as a compliment.

Director Angela Cascarino stages this girl-power fantasy as a frothy pantomime: all over-the-top gestures, exaggerated facial expressions, cast often breaking motivation to cross down stage centre and sing to the audience for no reason at all. Even the more intimate moments are played with the feel of an 80s soap. The wigs are ill-fitting and awkward (as they were all like that it made me think it was an intentional artistic decision). I expected Widow Twanky and Santa Claus to fly in on a disco ball, and yes, a glitter ball effect is used. It’s nice to see that some imagination is used in re-interpreting rather than copying some key moments from the professional production.

There’s no subtlety or nuance here. Due to the OTT approach the show lacks heart and soul, but you won’t miss it, as this production isn’t about that. No one goes to a street parade expecting Hamlet.

As the titular blonde (Elle Woods) Kristel Arnold gives the role great vim. She certainly looked like she enjoyed herself on stage. I didn’t think the fickle me-first ex-boyfriend (Warner Huntington III) could get any shallower or more vain but Chris Glynn takes him there. Brad Gavin as the love interest (Emmett Forrest) is in fine voice and gives off the right vibe of a frog who can only be turned into a prince by female intervention.

Brendan Cascarino’s choreography is a great highlight, and spectacularly danced by the cast. The Irish Jig and Elle’s Harvard application are showstoppers.

The Ensemble is just Wow. Other highlights are David Cartwright’s sleazy professor (Callahan), Amy Newcombe’s daughter with the Godzilla perm (Chutney), Paul Michael’s delivery man/pool boy, and Abbey Glynn’s “assertive” law student (Enid Hoopes). My personal highlights are Laura Glynn as the bitch-turned-bestie (Vivienne Kensington), Lauren Whelan as the aerobics queen (Brooke Wyndham), and Hayley Cascarino, Liv Wassef, Renee Ciaparra and Chloe Ford as Elle’s sorority sisters. And yes, the two dogs upstage everyone.

The production does have some flaws, the big one being the overlarge, cumbersome sets and lengthy scene changes. The cast is not served well by playing second fiddle to the sets, with scene changes often starting halfway through a song, or extra encores added for cover. I was often not watching the cast but the set change going on behind them. It was noticeable that the most effective scenes were the ones (too few) with no or minimal set.

I felt the cast was doing battle with the band. Laura Glynn, Lauren Whelan and David Cartwright are the only ones who actually sing, with every word perfectly understood. Their dialogue – along with Paul Michael’s – is also clearly understood. The sound mix is loud - really loud - as in “I-was-in-the-back-row-and-found-it-loud” loud. And there are far too many off notes coming from the pit.

The costumes are eye-catchingly good, but not everyone looks good in them.

However, the cast are enjoying themselves and have great energy, and really, that’s what this production is all about.

Big pink fun.

Review by Peter Novakovich

Photographer: Angela Cascarino