Theater review: The 101 Dalmatians Musical

by John Garcia of John Garcia's The Column

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The book by BT McNicholl goes all over the map, trying desperately to make logical sense of talking dogs and humans.

As a tiny boy I watched Disney's animated film 101 Dalmatians with my eyes transfixed on the silver screen like Elmer's glue. The reason really wasn't the dogs. Nope. It was the angular, rail thin villainess, Cruella De Vil, who kept my attention like a shiny bauble dangled before me. That old broad didn't really scare me, but instead drew me in like Medusa and her coiffure of slithering snakes -- except this time her hair resembled an exploding vanilla & chocolate ice cream swirl. She obviously either did meth or was on the Calista Flockhart aka "Hollywood starlet" diet, because the broad was pencil thin!

Her contempt and hissing hatred towards the dogs made her so deliciously evil that you wanted to see her in every frame of that sweet, if a bit overly sugared, saturated animated film.

In 1996, Walt Disney went into their animated film vaults, blew off the dust, and turned 101 Dalmatians into a family-themed live film starring Oscar nominee Glenn Close as Cruella. She feasted upon that scenery, devouring it with a terrifically over-the-top camp filled performance. You could see overtones of her Norma Desmond from her Broadway stint in Sunset Blvd. seep into her performance. Plus she got to wear some of the most outlandish and exquisite costumes that would make Anna Wintour take off her dark shades and nod with approval.

It would only take time before someone dreamed up the idea of taking this charming story about spotted dogs and its malevolent villain and transforming it into a stage musical.

Still in the midst of their out of town tryout run, the national tour has stopped last night at the Music Hall at Fair Park courtesy of Dallas Summer Musicals (it runs through December 20).

These are the times in which I actually do not enjoy writing reviews. Why? Because unfortunately the end product as it is right now, The 101 Dalmatians Musical is a complete mess that is in desperate need of a complete renovation from top to bottom.

The book by BT McNicholl goes all over the map, trying desperately to make logical sense of talking dogs and humans. It never finds the true arc in its storytelling or character development. The jokes fall flat with a loud, lifeless thud. It sorely lacks robust comedic writing.

Even though we go on a journey with the parent dogs finding their kidnapped children (puppies), McNicholl has added distractions and irritating characters that just are not needed to block their journey. They instead they stop the action and flow, what little there is to begin with.

We have all these minor characters that pop up, performing humdrum, vapid numbers that really don't need to be there. Examples of this include the vaudeville duet for the villains, a dreadful duet about cooking in the kitchen, and a baffling company number involving a band of gypsies.

His biggest crime is what he has done with the character of Cruella De Vil, who -- let's face it -- is the true star of the films. I mean she's even on the show's poster! At the beginning of the first act, a character makes a comment that Cruella's last name means "Devil."

McNicholl latches on this one word and horribly does injustice to Cruella by literally turn this metaphor as the only characteristic and focus for the role. Is she supposed to be Satan in drag? Or his daughter? Wife? Muse? Her paper tissue thin written role is stuck on a one lane that dead ends, which is to get a coat made of dogs. We never know what made her this way.

He does write a scene about her showing off the latest furs of the season at a party. Um ... why? Is she a fashion designer? It would have been such delicious fun if she was this big time fashion designer (aka The Devil Wears Prada) who is about to have the splashiest couture that the Paris fashion runway has ever seen. From there we could have a great runway show of outlandish fur costumes and a hysterical number for Cruella. Instead she's stuck dead center struggling to make the feeble number work.

McNicholl has confined the role into this airtight box of devil overtones (including having her party guests having to deal with a sweltering hot ballroom). Which begs the question -- why on earth would this she-devil need a friggin' coat in hell? Makes no sense. It was just so disappointing to see the best and most memorable role of the films lacking the hilarious camp overtones and sidesplitting one-liners that character demands. Maybe McNicholl can call Bruce Vilanch or Harvey Fierstein for some major resuscitation on Cruella's role as well as the script, because right now as it stands, this book is dead on arrival.

Dennis DeYoung composed the music, while McNicholl wrote the lyrics. DeYoung might ring a bell to you rock fans, as the lead singer of the famous '80s band Styx. DeYoung composed many of the band's major hits. Boy, could we have used something like "Come Sail Away," "Mr. Roboto," "Babe," etc. within in this musical score. The majority of the score is slathered in Valium. Many of the songs lack any real pizzazz or resounding Broadway busting gusto. They don't have that unique and special musicality that begs for a second hearing. Most of the numbers have a camouflage-like covering of not providing any true character development or subtext.

Where DeYoung & McNicholl miss the boat completely are their songs for Cruella. First off, to have such a memorable character resorted to only two numbers in the first act and then just ONE song in the second deserves these two writers a trip to the guillotine. What made it even worse was that the numbers composed for her went nowhere. No sidesplitting lyrics or terrific musical composition for the role to perform.

The few numbers that did work were the ones written for the dogs (no pun intended). There was the sweet and soothing "A Perfect Family;" Pongo's adorable "World's Greatest Dad;" and the lovely ballad "One True Love."

It makes one scratch their heads on how acclaimed and Tony award-winning director Jerry Zaks did not see the endless flaws in this production. The staging is static, dull, and lifeless. It was an evening full of sit and sing or stand and sing. The pace seemed off kilter, and the performances were hit and miss in some actors.

One of Mr. Zaks biggest mistakes was the conception of having all the adults on stilts. That's right, stilts. I totally get what he was trying to achieve here: So that we the audience see everything from the point of view of the dogs, the humans are taller. Think of those actors who were giraffes in The Lion King and you get the picture. But this idea was a huge mistake and a blinding eyesore in 101 Dalmatians.

Throughout the night, the actors had difficulty walking in them, "dancing" on them, and walking normal. You could see their heads and eyes dart endless times down to the floor to make sure that they were not going to step on anyone or trip on something. It confined their movements, dancing, and energy so, so much. Thus their choreography was so dull and limited within their musical numbers. Especially Cruella, who should have the freedom to really eat up the stage with her body and movement. But the poor actress was stuck in those Frankenstein-like stilts. The way the company walked on these stilts and the "look" of these contraptions made them look like a second-rate Cirque du Soleil troupe.

Let me again say, while I sincerely do appreciate the idea of what they were going for here, it just did not work whatsoever.

However, I thoroughly did enjoy the creative idea of using tiny cutouts of characters and Cruella's car in a la "shadow puppet theater" for several scenes. This turned out to be a marvelous conception that worked beautifully here.

The choreography by Warren Carlyle was utterly lackluster, lifeless, and elementary. For a national tour like this, you need eye-popping choreography that has the audience applauding till their hands bled. While I appreciate the kids (who portrayed the puppies) going all out in the frenetic, jazz/pop/hip hop-flavored dance routines, it had a very familiar vibe and look of "see that before" on those audition episodes of So You Think You Can Dance.

Robert Morgan's costume design is quite attractive and does have some terrific creations sprinkled throughout his cast. But because of all the talk of furs and even a whole scene dedicated to furs, what Morgan designed for Cruella was all wrong. She needed a massive, over-the-top fur with a long train to make her grand entrance to her own party. Instead she wore a long white wrap that looked like she skinned a Muppet backstage for its fur.

The costumes for the gypsies and the bumbling sidekicks were quite colorful in design, as were the costumes for the humans in the opening number at the park.

Cruella's gowns are serviceable, but sorely lack that over-the-top Grande dame haute couture that a woman of her taste would wear. Plus the idea of having all her costumes in red hues got old real fast.

What makes the production not a total failure is the hard-working, never giving up mentality within the majority of the cast. Coming from personal experience, even I could tell this was not a really energetic, responsive audience sitting in the Music Hall last night. It was a tough house for them, but they gave it their all, and for that I do thank them with much loud applause.

Within the large cast some of the best performances of the evening came from the following:

Chuck Ragsdale as "Prince," the Dalmatian who serves as our narrator, does a fine job in helping the audience through the dilapidated script. A charming stage presence and warm glow of a smile added to his performance. For such a big role, it was alarming that he did not even have a solo to sing.

One of the true stand-out performances of the night came from James Ludwig as "Pongo," the dad Dalmatian. He had a glowing stage presence that sparkled throughout the evening. Ludwig has terrific acting choices on making sure to keep his body and movements as a dog, helping remind the audience that he is, after all, a canine. As stated earlier, some of the best numbers of the night were composed for Ludwig's character. A silken smooth tenor voice, Ludwig sings alluringly several of his numbers that made him turn in a scene-stealing performance.

Catia Ojeda portrays "Missus," Pongo's wife. While Ms. Ojeda does possess a beguiling singing voice, she never seemed to keep up the same level of energy, intensity, and commitment to characterization of a dog as her "husband dog" Ludwig did. She seemed to forget that she was a dog, thus she seemed to play the role too human-like. However, Ojeda does do a marvelous job with her second act solo "My Sweet Child."

Michael Thomas Holmes (Jasper) and Robert Anthony Jones (Jinx) are the nefarious sidekicks who do the dirty work for their employer, Cruella. These two actually remind me of two other villain sidekicks from another Disney animated film, The Little Mermaid. Remember? Flotsam & Jetsam, the two slithering eels whose master was the octopus villain Ursula.

Strange how Disney villainesses tend to have two male sidekicks to do their bidding. Gloria Steinem would be proud of these women of power.

Holmes and Jones have keen comedic timing and delivery that did provide some laughs within the production. Alas, due to yet another major flaw in the book, it wounds their characterizations severely.

Both kept mentioning some British reality show called What's My Crime?, that they both want to be on so bad. They even do a full-out duet number about why they should be on this show. But we are given so little back story on this TV show, which no one really cares or gets.

Their vaudeville-themed routine wasn't helped by those damn stilts either. The music was jazzy and begged for outrageous, over-the-top choreography to really sell the number. Heck, they even had canes thrown to them from the side stage. But thanks to the stilts, the number crumbled to dust by the end in regards to the stiff, cumbersome staging and choreography. While Jones and Holmes both were terrific, you could sense that they could have done so much more with a better book and score, and on their own two feet.

Julie Foldesi as "Perdita" is another winsome, entertaining performance within the company. She plays the mother dalmatian whose children (puppies) were stolen a mere two months ago. She also lost her one true love, her husband. However, it's never clearly explained in the book on what happened to him. If it was, then it was stated so fast or written so threadbare that I didn't grasp it. Nonetheless, Ms. Foldesi has one of the best solos of the night, the touching lullaby, "One True Love." Her tender, pristine soprano voice glided sweetly through the ballad, making it one of the very rare musical number highlights of the evening.

To me Rachel York is a true Broadway star that steals every show she's in that I have seen. She is one of the VERY few women in history to actually steal a show away from the great Julie Andrews. I saw Ms. York as "Norma Cassidy" in the lame stage version of Victor/Victoria. York gave a star-turning performance in that musical. Her superb comedic talents even outshined Leslie Ann Warren, who originated the film role. But even more so, she even stole the show from the great Andrews. She got the biggest laughs of the night. Several times on the night I saw the show, the audience applauded loudly after one of her great zingers. I'm still aghast that her performance in that show did not earn her a Tony nomination.

I saw her again in the national tour of Kiss Me Kate, and here again she stole and ran away with this classic Cole Porter hit that was a recent revival on Broadway. As "Lilli/Kate," Ms. York was phenomenal, both in her singing and tour de force comedic talents.

In the starring role of "Cruella De Vil" Ms. York delivers a wicked, evil, over-the-top performance that makes her the saving grace of this show. She pulls out all the stops to really sell the role, and she succeeds with outstanding success.

York does all she can to sell her numbers (which are composed with mediocre music and banal lyrics). She has a sublime, rich, golden soprano singing voice that she can belt with the best of them. So she goes full out on her few songs that have been created for her role. Unfortunately the composition of the songs never really give her the meat and potatoes to really turn these half-baked songs into showstoppers. But god love her, she works overtime to make them work as best as she can.

The book isn't much help for her either. You can see York relish being the evil queen of furs, with hilarious facial expressions and voice inflections to make Cruella her own fantastic creation. But she doesn't have any great one liners or campy jokes that could transform the role into a hysterical, side-splitting character. It broke my heart watching Ms. York giving it her all, but sorrowfully she can only do so much with the pedestrian, uninspired material.

Nonetheless, it is Ms. York's performance that saves the evening and makes the show really come alive.

Are there real dogs? Yes. For the final scene they do come out and do a really enjoyable and exciting set of tricks that drew the loudest applause and reactions from the audience. That's what's so sad about this show. It was a final scene with live dogs that generated the loudest response from the audience. Not the book. Not the music. Not the direction, choreography, etc.

I honestly don't know if this material can be turned into a successful musical. Because right now it needs so, so, so much work. For sure the book and score are the first to go. Plus those distracting, god-awful stilts.

But whatever they do decide to repair on, the one sure thing they need to keep is Rachel York in the show. She IS the star of the show and they should just really ante up her role, like giving her more songs that are better written with side-splitting lyrics. Then give her a solid, laugh-filled script that she can sink her comedic talents into. But primarily they need to shift the true focus of the show on Ms. York and her character -- then I honestly think the musical could turn out to be a monster hit! Ms. York's impeccable talents deserve that. As do the audience.

GRADE: C-

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