If you’re looking for a good example of making some sour lemons into the sweetest of lemonades, consider the origin story of “Legally Blonde.” When Amanda Brown entered law school at Stanford University, she concluded pretty quickly that it was a bad fit for her, a fashion-loving, blond-haired, bubbly young woman who took notes with a fluffy pink pen.
But Brown turned those experiences into a comic novel that she shopped around, her pink-papered manuscript eventually pulled out of a literary agent’s slush pile and soon the focus of a Hollywood studio bidding war. The 2001 film was a big hit and was adapted into a Broadway musical six years later.
A tour has brought that musical to St. Paul’s Ordway Music Theater, and, if you’re looking for breezy, light-hearted fare that makes you feel as if summer is officially here, this show’s for you. The spousal songwriting team of Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin unapologetically embraces silliness, and this tour’s cast strikes a fine balance between being convincing and cartoonish in a briskly paced and consistently fun production.
So fun, in fact, that you’ll probably have a really good time even if you make out only about a third of what seem to be very clever lyrics. On opening night, the audio was inconsistent and the orchestra out of balance with it. Which makes a good argument for going later in the run, when the bugs will presumably be eradicated.
Director Cynthia Ferrer and choreographer Dana Solimando keep the action fleetly flowing as you follow the story of Elle Woods, a UCLA fashion merchandising major who seeks to win back her ex-boyfriend by following him to Harvard Law School. There, she impresses a professor and eventually lands on the defense team for a high-profile murder case. (Please suspend disbelief, legal eagles.)
O’Keefe and Benjamin’s score puts the pedal to the metal as soon as you hop in, the whirlwind of exposition flying forth with the peppy rocker, “Omigod You Guys,” and continuing with “What You Want,” a stylistic smorgasbord of rock, pop, funk, reggae and, finally, a law school admissions interview with full marching band and dance squad. Like I said, silly, as are the mock boy-band ballad, “Serious,” and an out-of-nowhere spoof of “Riverdance.”
Things sag a bit in the second act, when we spend way too much time debating the sexual orientation of a character whose ties to the plot seem tenuous at best. But, just as in the first act, Kathryn Brunner’s Elle is there to pull us out of the lull with a big-voiced ballad that underlines the character’s determination or discouragement.
Brunner makes for a magnetic center to the story, her Elle an easy-to-root-for underdog with an effervescent aura, a sweet voice and a chihuahua in tow. She’s complemented well by a large, high-energy cast, among the standouts Anthea Neri-Best as her comic cosmetologist, Nicholas McDonough as a smarmy careerist and Edward Staudenmayer as the kind of condescending professor that most former college students may recognize.
Adorned in brightly colored lighting, set pieces and projections (with pink as a dominant hue), there’s a lot of dessert-without-the-entree to “Legally Blonde,” but this cast sells it well, making it as bubbly as its engaging protagonist.
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‘Legally Blonde’
When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 1:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday
Where: Ordway Music Theater, 345 Washington St., St. Paul
Tickets: $164-$45, available at 651-224-4222 or ordway.org
Capsule: A sweet, silly confection for a summer night.
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