Legally Blonde

Bubble-gum Musical

Princess of Wales Theatre until August 8

Reviewed by Ron Singer

LEGALLY BLONDE is a bubble gum, feel-good musical designed for an audience who want reasonably mindless musical  spectacles. Disclosure; I saw this production on Broadway, prior to its move to Toronto – so I can include general highlights of the production, but can’t comment on the performances of the Toronto stage brigade.

The story and plot are reasonably simplistic; a very pretty, high-energy and bright blonde girl is dumped by her Harvard-bound boyfriend because he believes that she comes across like a “dumb blonde”. So, she decides to also go to Harvard in order to show him that not all blondes deserve the “dumb” label.

At Harvard, naturally, she succeeds at all levels academically, socially and romantically and more than proves her point:, namely, don’t let appearances fool you, or you can’t tell a book by its cover.  The NY acting varied from strong to schticky, except for the two dogs in the production whose acting was outstanding. And there are some up tempo tuneful songs and lots of energetic, well choreographed dances.

Legally Blonde is a well-produced, fun entertainment over-all, but as saccharined and artificial as cotton candy, and just about as Barbie Doll colourful. Nevertheless, I’ll admit that I actually enjoyed it for what it is: a fun, uptempo, but mindless, Valley Girl mentality musical. And the many, many prepubescent girls and their mothers in the audience, for whom this production is perfectly geared, seemed to be eating it up, so to speak.

About Ron Singer: Artistic Director Emeritus of The Randolph Academy of the Performing Arts, former Chair of the Department of Theatre at York University, former entertainment critic (CFRB Radio and Standard Broadcast News), and former  arts and entertainment reporter (CBC Variety Tonight). We’re honoured to have Ron with us.

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