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21.06.2016
Young SpongeBob saves the day, in a big, loud way
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Description
By Chris Jones
Hopeless optimism is as good a strategy as any in our angry, hate-filled world. So by the time "The SpongeBob Musical" turns the Krusty Krab into a Hells Kitchen canteen, SpongeBob SquarePants, designated flipper of the Krabby Patty, might just be the yellow tonic that Broadway, and its fans across America, sorely need.
Why not a Panglossian poriferan at the heart of an ebullient, spectacular underwater pastiche? You got a better idea to save our Bikini Bottom?
At the opening of its Chicago tryout, the strengths of "The SpongeBob Musical," which features a book by Kyle Jarrow, direction by Tina Landau and a double album's worth of disparate songwriters with lips flaming and otherwise, begin with a knockout central turn from Ethan Slater. Looking like a youthful amalgam of Rod Stewart, Barry Manilow and Bello Nock the clown, the vocally charming Slater nails the most crucial qualities of Nickelodeon's biggest brand name: his irony-free gestalt, his stoic but vulnerable demeanor and his belief that this might as well be the best day ever, since that just might prevent it from being the worst.
Ethan Slater as SpongeBob SquarePants with the company of "The SpongeBob Musical" at the Oriental Theatre.
Slater is well supported by Lilli Cooper, who plays Sandy Cheeks, the ex-pat Texan squirrel; the very honest Danny Skinner as the insecure Patrick Star; Carlos Lopez as Eugene Krabs; and Gavin Lee, the terrific hoofer who plays Squidward Tentacles, the Eeyore of this crew, whose big Act 2 dance number, fabulously choreographed by Christopher Gattelli, stops the show.
Danny Skinner as Patrick Star, Ethan Slater as SpongeBob Squarepants and Lilli Cooper as Sandy Cheeks in "The SpongeBob Musical" at the Oriental Theatre.
"The SpongeBob Musical's" biggest gamble — a score made up of singles by different songwriters and unified by orchestrator Tom Kitt — works quite beautifully in the anarchic playpen that Landau has created with her designers, David Zinn and Kevin Adams. Jonathan Coulton has penned "Bikini Bottom Day" — the "Good Morning Baltimore" set-up song — a melodic charmer. The Plain White T's nail the buddy song, "BFF," and Sara Bareilles, really adept now at this form, contributes a droll ditty for Patchy the Pirate: It's the Act 2 opener, and it brings Patchy, who struggles to find his way in Act 1, to some belated life (the dull pre-show could be a lot more fun).
Danny Skinner as Patrick Star, Lilli Cooper as Sandy Cheeks and Ethan Slater as SpongeBob SquarePants in "The SpongeBob Musical" at the Oriental Theatre.
The show benefits from some specialty numbers, including Yolanda Adams' witty, Gospel-style "Super Sea Star Savior" and Steven Tyler and Joe Perry's self-parodying, "Bikini Bottom Boogie." Cyndi Lauper's "Hero is My Middle Name" works great, as does the most emotional number, "(Just a) Simple Sponge" by Panic! At the Disco. There's even an, ahem, distinctive David Bowie/Brian Eno trunk number, "No Control," a macabre pleasure. Thankfully the best song of the lot is the climactic number: "Best Day Ever." It's by Andy Paley and Tom Kenny and a winner.
Lilli Cooper as Sandy Cheeks and Ethan Slater as SpongeBob SquarePants in "The SpongeBob Musical" at the Oriental Theatre.
The eye-popping, wildly distinctive set to "SpongeBob" spills out across the theater — a wacky world of pool noodles, runaways and silly machinery, all with a recycled air. That's ammunition against any charge of excessive spectacle, although excessive certainly would not be an unfair adjective to describe this show at some moments. At times in Act 1, it feels too much like we are watching the goings-on in a hyper-kinetic Munchkinland.
That's an issue. It might be set underwater, but there is no drier show on television than "SpongeBob SquarePants," and the transition to Broadway now needs to involve a dialing back of excess and more attention to truth — Bikini Bottom truth, sure, but metaphoric human veracity, nonetheless. Jarrow's book, which involves Bikini Bottom fighting off an erupting volcano (with you-know-who climbing the mountain at the last possible moment) is a deliciously quirky piece of writing, with resonance to the panic surrounding Y2K, and the more horrific perils, natural and human, attacking the environment we all share, for better or worse. Sometimes the production slows down enough to emphasize those moments and allow warm-blooded actors like Slater, Cooper and Lee to communicate directly with the audience. Often it does not. SpongeBob is too removed from us.
Plankton (Nick Blaemire), a crucial nemesis, needs to find some gravitas. It's tricky, because the surely capable Blaemire is trapped with a different conceit, a.k.a. holding a very small puppet, than the rest of these characters. It just doesn't yet work. Patchy has similar issues.
There are live Foley effects in the house — which seems have tempted Landau, who otherwise has directed this show with an incredibly exciting ensemble spirit, to want to compete with a Pixar movie or The Avengers or some other ka-pow! affair. That feels like a digression from the Gospel of SpongeBob, which is about people overcoming everyday perils — and they really can erupt all around you, as in Jarrow's book, especially when you are not looking. The musical has a viable overarching narrative, but it doesn't always capture the aphorism-filled spirit of the episodic stories its fans love. It could. It should.
A few numbers, and a few more scenes, are trampled by the sound effects. Another way to think of this main problem is that the show needs to retain the soul, characters and gestalt of the cartoon, and then completely lose the cartoon. Understandably, it has been hard for them.
But as Landau well knows, theater requires retail conversation. One on One. Or Sponge on 2,253. His name is on the marquee — we want to get to know him, and it sure would be nice if the show had a number where SpongeBob does what SpongeBob does on a normal day: flip burgers. We never really see Bikini Bottomers living their lives before everything goes awry. There's a lesson in "Fiddler on the Roof." SpongeBob is a lot like Tevye.
"The SpongeBob Musical" has the God-like French Narrator, a nod to its oceanographic roots. Jarrow does not seem to know whether he wants to use this narrator, who barely gets a voice in, so to speak. Much of the storytelling comes instead from a TV newscaster, Perch Perkins (Kelvin Moon Loh), a cliche that rarely works in musicals, and this one is no exception, albeit no fault of Loh's.
All that can be fixed. Landau and the diverse, talented team she's hired in a very deftly and freshly cast show have done the tough stuff: The world is there before us, beautifully visualized, all shimmering and glittering, inarguably unique. Kids will feel like they've walked into an anarchic playland. Reluctant adults, a core audience, will be delighted to be out of the office (or Starbucks) and back in such a carefee place, and still feel like they're getting their money's worth. Now Landau's cast can concentrate on playing people. For those are the souls who populate Bikini Bottom. That's why Mr. SquarePants already has reportedly made $8 billion in merch, and has been running on Nickelodeon for 17 years. And, just now, the musical …
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
[email protected] Twitter @ChrisJonesTrib
"The SpongeBob Musical" – 3 STARS
When: Through July 10
Where: Oriental Theatre, 24 W. Randolph St.
Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes
Tickets: $33-100 at 800-775-2000 or BroadwayinChicago.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/reviews/ct-spongebob-squarepants-musical-chicago-ent-0620-20160619-column.html
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