Theater Review: Frozen (But also Kind of the Movie)
Before The Show
First of all, I do know there’s proshot of the musical on Disney+, but I don’t have Disney+, nor did I even want to see the musical in the first place. It was actually my mom who, upon learning about Frozen coming to my community theater, insisted we’d see it.
I did NOT want to go at first. Frozen is a bad movie and I shouldn't watch it because… Because of why, exactly?
I had actually forgotten why I so thoroughly disliked Frozen, just that I did and it must’ve been for a good reason. All this time, and the only thing behind my negative opinion at this point was pure momentum.
I believe I know the reasons, though they don’t stir the emotions they used to: how big and commercial the movie got, Let It Go being absolutely inescapable for years, internalizing reviewers' universal mockery of the plot across YouTube, and how could I forget all the Elsagate videos??
Years and years of seeing Elsa and Anna’s bug-eyed faces lining store shelves, YouTube thumbnails of Elsa getting pregnant by Spider-Man, the bad flash games, and anything else I may have forgotten—it just caused any positive feelings I had about the movie to curdle over into disgust.
However, it’s been 11 years since the first film came out. Maybe it was time that I confront these mental hang-ups and see for myself how justified they are?
That wasn’t ultimately what made me decide to go, though. What cinched it was that a classmate at the time was a member of the ensemble, so I wanted to support her and the cast as well. She told me they were putting their all into the production and it felt like it’d be criminal not to support that.
…So FINE, I’ll go, mom!!
When ordering my tickets, they had an add-on where you could take your kids to meet Elsa and Anna after the show, which was quite adorable I had to admit.
The Show
Arriving at the theater, I was taken aback by how much the theater went all-out for this.
We came pretty early, so it was a lot of time sitting and waiting for the show to start. The music that played was occasionally interspersed with the groans and the crackles of ice, which I obviously loved enough to remember, but they made me feel real cold sitting in that already-chilly theater.
Soon though, the lights dimmed and the show began, opening up on two incredibly talented child actresses playing Elsa and Anna.
It almost felt like watching a Director's Cut of the film, as this musical was able to take more time developing the relationship between Elsa and Anna, and subsequently how devastating and sudden it was that Elsa had to hole herself away after accidentally hurting her sister.
I was wondering how they'd represent Elsa's ice powers in a live setting, but I found out pretty quickly when child Elsa's gestures were accompanied by brilliantly done projections. They lined various set-pieces, and the crazy thing was that they did not visibly bleed into other parts of the scene at any point: no shaking, no nothing. The precision really did make the stage feel like it had frozen over when it was time for that, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
The plot was pretty straightforward to the film based on my 10+ year old memory of it. The only change I really noticed was how they changed the rock trolls to mystical mountain spirits, which I think was just a good change overall, regardless of it being due to constraints or otherwise. The rock trolls always kind of stuck out, so having them be spirits, it made the magic of the world more grounded and mystical.
So Elsa and Anna grow up, and the child actresses get replaced with their adult counterparts.
That's when I saw another one of their special effect techniques: people in cloaks running around. They first came up pretending to be the waves that swallowed their parents' ship, reapparing to emulate chunks of ice during certain scenes. Any description of them does a total disservice to how they actually looked, but they looked very convincing, especially combined with the projections.
As we follow Elsa and her desperation to keep her powers in check, I got unexpectedly choked up seeing how much self-loathing she had over her powers. That really struck a chord within me as someone with peculiarities of my own that I hated and tried to starve out for so long (spoiler alert: you can't starve them out, you never can). I don't remember getting as emotional about Elsa when I saw the movie the first time, but I'm sure at the time, I didn't understand myself and what I was doing enough to identify with her.
It comes time for Elsa to be coronated as queen. As the actors flooded in as the various guests, I was delighted to see some famliar faces from past productions!
The one that surprised me the most was the actor, playing the Duke of Wesselton, who played Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys. That musical, and by association the people on that production, will always have a spot in my heart as the show that made me realize the excellence of community theater.
So Elsa's powers show themselves and she runs off into the mountains, and I was emotionally right there with her. I was upset at that, because at the same time, it's very clear that Elsa was made that way as a calculated, focus-grouped move. Elsa's powers can be a metaphor for literally anything that differentiates you from others, with the lesson being that those differences are actually your superpower. I find that message to be patronizing and dismissive of the work it takes to make those differences work for you.
I'm going off on this because despite all that, I still teared up when Elsa quick changed into her iconic dress during Let It Go.
Anna goes to look for her sister, which makes this a good opportunity to mention the supporting characters: Kristoff, Sven, and Olaf… How can one possibly portray Sven and Olaf, two non-human characters, in live theater on a budget?
Well with Sven, it was done with a custom suit that could only have been created by an extremely skilled fursuit maker. There's no other community that can make such high quality custom suits like Sven's. He looks pretty much identical to the movie, just with the puppeteer's head sticking out from the top and Sven's hind legs needing to be dragged around. I'd like to shake the hand of whoever made that, because I was just staring at it in awe the entire time.
Olaf was more how you'd expect, carved from some kind of foam. His puppeteer was dressed in white, his shoes being Olaf's. He'd use a rod to operate the top of Olaf's head for talking and then another to move an arm. I found it quite humorous because out of context, it looks like some random guy is trailing behind Olaf for no reason.
It was a fun viewing experience all around, and so much work was put into every aspect of the stage and the effects, but my favorite part was yet to come.
When Anna moved to protect Elsa from Hans, who else showed up but the people in cloaks? As she froze over, they rushed from the sides to stoop behind her, cleverly disguised by yet another projection. It really did look like a trail of ice spontaneously formed behind Anna as she reached forward. Such a well-executed effect was perfect for the climax of the story.
Afterwards
I still wouldn't consider myself a Frozen fan after watching it, but this musical did heal something in me, I think. I was able to shed my corporate pessimism long enough to enjoy the story, free of the resentment and spite that has clouded my perspective for over a decade. That's no easy feat.
So I guess it's safe to say: the love put into this production has succeeded in thawing my frozen heart, at least in regards to Frozen.
It really was that good.