Watching Kobe Bryant play at the Staples Center in Los Angeles was always a bucket-list item for me. I moved to L.A. in 2013 for school eager for the opportunity. I never got the chance. Kobe missed most of that season with Achilles tendon and knee injuries. I went to Staples and watched the Lakers, but without Kobe on the court, the experience never lived up to my expectations.
This is how I felt sitting in the audience of The Auditorium for opening night of “Elf the Musical.” The show is based on the 2003 film “Elf,” which stars iconic funny man Will Ferrell, and has become a contemporary Christmas classic. I’ve watched the film every holiday season for nearly two decades now. Heading into the theater for the musical, I was expecting a nostalgic yet magical experience, reminiscent of how I felt after leaving the musical version of “Back to the Future,” which I loved (the touring show).
Yet, where “Back to the Future: The Musical” was able to find its footing without being led by Michael J. Fox, “Elf the Musical” doesn’t quite work without Will Ferrell. After sitting through two-and-half mediocre hours of musical theater, I think I understand why. The movie “Elf” isn’t actually all that great. What we really love about the film is Ferrell’s dynamite performance.
In the film, Ferrell plays Buddy, a cartoonishly oversized elf, who learns he’s not really an elf, but a human who crawled into Santa’s sack as an infant orphan. Buddy heads to New York City to meet his father, who is on Santa’s naughty list, and on the journey, he falls in love with a human woman and learns the true meaning of Christmas. Ferrell perfectly embodies the offbeat elf who spends the first 30 years of his life as a misfit in the North Pole, then heads to the Big Apple without any concept of what it means to be human.
In many ways, it seems Jack Ducat, who plays Buddy in the musical, never really stood a chance. This is Ducat’s first Broadway experience, and the up-and-coming actor had tremendous shoes to fill in a role so well-known and beloved by audiences.
The musical follows the same beats as the film, which doesn’t leave room for the plot itself to be the primary driver of capturing the audience’s attention. Under direction by Philip Wm. McKinley (restaged for tour by Dave Solomon) the jokes are plentiful, but they don’t land firmly enough in the hands of Ducat, who doesn’t have the comedic timing or pleasantly off-kilter stage presence of the role’s originator.
I’ve always held firm to the idea that music can be the saving grace for any musical, but here the majority of the songs fall flat. There was no standout powerhouse voice in the cast and most of the songs lacked the necessary wit or charm to make up for lackluster vocal performances from lead actors.
One of the biggest missteps of this touring Broadway production is the stage design by Tim Goodchild. I’ve never been a huge fan of screens in live theater, but there are creative ways to incorporate them. Here, however, there is no creativity in the use of a large LCD screen that fills the backdrop of the stage. It was reminiscent of a low-budget high school musical, when a single backdrop is painted with trees to represent the entire setting of “Into the Woods.” The screen would display images of New York City, or the North Pole, or Central Park and it prohibited the magic of theater that transports characters, and audiences, into another world.
The show does have its high points. “Nobody Cares About Santa,” the opening song in act two was a delight. A group of department store Santas performed a song about rotten children and the disappearance of holiday cheer. It earned a chuckle from my seat and the accompanying dance number was fun. The closing number, “A Christmas Song,” included a tap dance routine from the ensemble that propelled the show to ending on a high note.
Before the final bows, after Buddy sings a song with all of New York on cable news to restore faith in Santa, thus providing the necessary fuel to propel Santa’s sleigh, the sleigh is lifted above the stage and Santa waves goodbye as a flurry of snow falls from overhead. This also felt like a lesser version of “Back to the Future” where a full-size replica of the famous Delorean soars over the audience. But in this case, where “Back to the Future” soared, “Elf The Musical” didn’t quite take off.
Mike Davis is a theater reporter who covers stages across Chicago.