“Shrek: The Musical”
Feb. 22-March 19.
$20-35. The Alliance Theatre, 1280 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta. 404-733-4200.
http://alliancetheatre.org/
The world’s most beloved ogre will arrive on the stage of the Alliance Theatre this week when the musical comedy “Shrek” opens Feb. 22.
The family show is a one-hour condensed version of the popular Broadway musical, which was based on the hit 2001 animated film about the cantankerous but lovable green ogre who goes on a quest to save his swamp from the scheming Lord Farquaad.
“I’m always looking for something for all audiences because we serve so many for the spring show,” says Rosemary Newcott, director of Alliance’s Theatre for Youth, who is directing the production. “It’s really a story that’s cross-generational because there’s so much in it for adults to like and so much in it for children to like.”
The cast and crew say one of the big challenges of putting on the show is the fact that viewers arrive with strong preconceptions about the story.
“It’s a little daunting because this character is so much in the mind’s eye of contemporary audiences,” says actor Caleb Clark, who will take on the part of Shrek. “I just tried to retain a lot of the things that audiences love about Shrek as they know him, but also to bring a lot of myself to him so it’s not just an imitation.”
“One of the great things in theater is that you can approach a script in a new way, coming at it without completely relying on preconceived ideas people have,” says Kat Conley, who designed the scenery for the production. She created a classic fairy-tale style reminiscent of storybooks from the Art Nouveau period, a somewhat different approach than the film or the 2008 Broadway musical. For the scene in which the evil Lord Farquaad connives to marry Princess Fiona, Conley says she and her team had fun designing the church to look as tacky as a bad Las Vegas wedding chapel, fitting with the villain’s unappealing and garish personality.
The Broadway show, a touring production of which played at the Fox Theatre in 2011, involved elaborate body suits for the main characters like Shrek and Donkey, but costume designer Sydney Roberts says the Alliance will be working with a more stripped down, human look. “We prefer to show the actors’ faces and to let the actors communicate with the audience,” she says. “We’ve never been a fan of masks and other things that disguise the actor too much.” Roberts says she went to the original source for the film, the 1990 children’s book by writer and illustrator William Steig, to help create the look of the characters for this production.
“The actor David de Vries has to play the character Farquaad on his knees,” Roberts says about the story’s pint-sized villain. “We have to hide his real legs and make little legs for him out of foam. It’s been one of the most fun things to work on because we’ve never done it before.” The show also includes puppets for characters like the Gingerbread Man, the Bluebird, the Three Little Pigs, and the dragon, which will be operated by three puppeteers.
But ultimately, the cast and crew say it’s the magic of live theater, rather than the magic of special effects, that will win audiences over. At the beginning of the show, viewers are invited to interact with Shrek, something that obviously isn’t possible with the film version.
“I think there’s nothing like live interaction,” says Newcott. “It takes a model of something you’re familiar with and puts it in people’s laps.”
Clark says about acting for kids, “They are your most savvy audiences. The thing about performing for children is that they are so open to you. They want you to be good. If you understand that and if you treat them as equals, they are ready to go on the ride with you. It can be one of the best audiences you ever perform for.”
The Alliance production keeps the storyline and songs from the Broadway show, but the running time has been shortened from the original two hours to about an hour and 15 minutes, to fit into school-day performance time slots. The Theatre for Youth production of “Shrek” was adapted by Jeff Church and premiered at the Coterie Theatre in Kansas City.
“Beneath all the humor, the fabulous thing about Shrek is that it’s a really human story,” says Clark. “It really is a story about being able to love yourself and being able to see that what the world sees as beautiful is not the only ‘beautiful’ there is. That’s what I really hope and really believe we’re going to be able to communicate.”
