Shrek the Musical is gloriously tasteless and shamelessly gassy enjoyable

Open this picture in gallery:

• Title: Shrek the Musical
• Book and Lyrics by: David Lindsay-Abaire
• Music by: Jeanine Tesori
• Director: Herbie Barnes
• Actors: Ellen Denny, Trevor Patt, Michael Therriault, Joema Firth
• Production and Venue: Young People’s Theatre
• City: Toronto
• Year: Runs to December 30, 2025

As romance goes, the rival-to-lover trope is a basic. Shakespeare beloved it, Jane Austen refined it, L.M. Montgomery gave it a uniquely Canadian twist. But I’ve by no means seen it culminate in fairly the identical gloriously tasteless and shamelessly gassy approach it does in Shrek the Musical, now taking part in at Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre.

Love could come by witty insults and verbal sparring. Or it could come by way of a prolonged farting and burping contest between a green-skinned ogre and the princess he adores. It’s an uncommon courting ritual that ought to offer you a way of the world this present inhabits.

There’s nothing refined or refined concerning the 85-minute adaptation of the 2001 DreamWorks animated movie, with music by Jeanine Tesori and a e book and lyrics by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire. It’s a parade of costumes, swirling colors, belted songs, over-the-top jokes and singing dragons.

Open this picture in gallery:

On Broadway, the place it premiered in 2008, the musical’s bubblegum morals and pantomime-style humour landed ambivalently with enlightened viewers. But in an viewers filled with children (and grown-ups with childlike hearts), I discovered it unattainable to not benefit from the foolish spectacle and high-energy magic. My five-year-old, who’d already seen a preview together with his drama class, laughed so exhausting that he turned heads.

For these unfamiliar with the cartoon, Shrek follows the travails of an deserted ogre who raises himself in a swamp that’s quickly invaded by a number of fairy-tale characters. Turns out the lavatory is coveted property, and a land dispute emerges with the power-hungry however cowardly Lord Farquaad, who tells Shrek he’ll hand over the deed in alternate for a favour.

Open this picture in gallery:

Shrek should rescue Princess Fiona from a dragon-guarded tower in order that Lord Farquaad can marry her and change into king. Shrek follows by way of and whereas, at first, he doesn’t just like the smart-mouthed princess any greater than she likes her beastly rescuer, the 2 find yourself hitting it off.

The manufacturing opens with a number of energetic ensemble items that exhibit Joyce Padua’s playful costumes and William Layton’s swirling psychedelic set, which climbs up reverse partitions of the theatre’s auditorium in steady murals. Monica Dottor’s choreography is entertaining and eclectic, infusing basic musical-theatre strikes with bits of faucet and hip hop.

Trevor Patt is instantly charming because the (inexplicably) Scottish ogre and there’s sturdy supportive work from the remainder of the solid, notably Joema Frith as Shrek’s sidekick, Donkey, who channels the ghost of Otis Redding in his highly effective musical numbers.

Open this picture in gallery:

The manufacturing, directed by YPT’s inventive director Herbie Barnes, is at its greatest when Ellen Denny takes the stage as Princess Fiona. Denny mixes the candy soprano of a cartoon heroine with grittiness that’s as impolite as it’s pleasant. We meet her as a trapped damsel, singing a satirical three-way quantity along with her little one and teenage selves (Megan Dallan and Dominique LeBlanc) concerning the drudgery of ready 8,423 days for her prince.

Denny is much more fascinating within the solo Morning Person, the place she concurrently embodies and lampoons the perfect fairy tale-princess clichés. Her capacity to charmingly out-do everybody, whether or not it’s singing ear-splittingly larger than the morning lark or one-upping Shrek on his sad childhood, makes her endlessly satisfying to root for.

Speaking of sad childhoods, particular point out should go to I Think I Got You Beat, the misery-olympics-cum-musical-number that ignites the primary sparks between Fiona and Shrek. The ogre and princess are evaluating battle wounds, every decided to show that they had it worse rising up, when the music adjustments tone and tempo, competitiveness dissolves into empathy, they usually immediately see one another in another way.

Open this picture in gallery:

It’s a sleight of hand that may solely work in a heightened, musical world, however I believed there was a well timed message right here value underlining, and positively extra considerate than the present’s different tropes.

One quibble with the manufacturing was the selection to have Lord Farquaad (Michael Therriault), who’s the butt of limitless brief jokes, play the position standing on his knees. There’s certainly a cleverer strategy to reframe the jokes in order that they land as metaphors, moderately than poke enjoyable at brief folks, which, on the danger of sounding sanctimonious, could possibly be construed as offensive.

But that apart, Shrek is a night (or afternoon) of enjoyable household leisure with broad attraction throughout age teams. My five-year-old is eager to go a 3rd time, whereas even the surliest, too-cool tween is certain to snigger.