Legally Blond

Pink splashed across the stage with reckless abandon. Next scene, more pink. A handsome stud sings a romantic ditty to the audience. His girlfriend stands up waving at the back of his head. That’s the unenviable beginning to the new Broadway musical LEGALLY BLONDE. If you’re thinking this must really stink, you’re wrong.

BLONDE is LEGALLY light and as clever as a Philadelphia lawyer. Speaking of which, the blonds in this show are more than mere cream cheese. As the story begins, Elle Woods, (Reese Witherspoon’s role in the movie) wins her way into Harvard Law just to pursue the handsome self obsessed boyfriend who dropped her.

As played here by Laura Bell Bundy, Elle tap dances her Harvard admissions essay along with a chorus of her sorority sisters. You just have to hand it to her for pulling off such a tacky entrance.  But Bundy wins our hearts because she plays it with the confidence and ease that Elle deserves.

She may be a socialite, but she connects with people from all walks of life. In fact, some of the most charming scenes take place in the beauty parlor with Elle’s beautician and confidante, Paulette. Orfeh gives a knock out performance as the street wise woman with a golden heart, a stream of funny gags, a feisty French bull dog and finally, a boyfriend. Paulette just flips when she meets the UPS guy, a ‘Lil Abner take off, played with some rare bragadosio by Gaelen Gilliland.

Of course the story is all about these flakey romances and the characters are typically cartoonish. Even Michael Rupert’s Harvard law professor, a boorish womanizer and a snidely villain at that, is nothing short of scene stealing.

Laurence O’Keefe’s and Nell Benjamin’s score is flighty and quick with a couple of surprising numbers, including the courtroom revelation in which a murderer is exposed when her beard turns out to be a gay European, “you big parfait/you flaming one-man cabaret.” Happily, it’s performed in Maurice Chivalia manner.

But the real hero of the production is Jerry Mitchell who drives the story, the actors and the musical scenes with such energy that BLONDE is actually magnetic.

That’s This Week on Broadway. I’m Isa Goldberg.