Elf The Musical Broadway Reviews

Henson, who was nominated for a Tony Award for his show-stealing turn as Damian in “Mean Girls,” makes Buddy utterly his own: sunny, darling, slightly unsettling. At the mention of tickle fights or snuggling, he emits a small noise that he doesn’t know is sexual, and moppets in the audience won’t either. That joke is aimed at the adults. It’s a tonic of a performance — the kind that makes you smile later, just thinking about it. The trouble is that Buddy is trapped inside “Elf the Musical,” a creaky adaptation whose two-and-a-half-hour length seems designed less to maximize audience enjoyment than to ensure there’s an intermission that people can spend buying merch.

While “Elf” can still hardly be considered a great or even good musical (many songs that fail to leave a lasting impression and loads of clunky comic business), the new Broadway production is, I must confess, a crowd-pleasing, feel-good delight that is presented with genuine showmanship, including expansive dance choreography by Liam Steel, whimsical digital projections, and (in a feat reminiscent of the “Back to the Future” musical) Santa’s sleigh flying high above the audience. There are also, of course, obligatory bursts of snow throughout the theater.

Christmas has come early to Broadway this year. Previous productions of the family-friendly comedic yuletide fable Elf The Musical, though pleasant enough, have seemed short on the very Christmas spirit—an ineffable sense of animating joy—that the musical is about. Its current revival, however, is another story entirely. To be honest, I wasn’t eager to see Elf get taken down from the shelf yet again. But my grinchiness soon vanished, to be replaced with a big wide grin. For the first time in my experience, this show is really elfin’ good.

If there are occasional glimmers that Elf has more going on than meets the eye, this production has done its best to convince you to grow up and stop believing in anything less than cold commercial logic. The show ends with its own flight of the DeLorean, this time with Santa’s sleigh and a ton of foam snow shot directly toward your seats. If it achieves a sense of spectacle, it’s only by way of brute force. I had to wipe a lot of crud off my glasses frames.

Elf: The Musical passes an important test of a seasonal Broadway show. It passes the wide smile/slightly moistened eyes/ridiculous amount of falling snow test, and—more significantly—passes the far more difficult actually-not-annoying-for-kids-and-adults test.

Elf The Musical, the cheery – very, very cheery – revival opening tonight for a limited holiday run on Broadway, is an entirely suitable gift from a hard-working cast for fans of the well-liked 2003 Will Ferrell Christmas perennial. If you crack up at memories of Mr. Narwhal (here represented by a large tusk rising from the orchestra pit as the conductor intones, “Bye Buddy, hope you find your dad!”), Elf has your tinseled name on it.

Not to sound a little salty, but Elf The Musical (directed by Philip WM. McKinley) can overstuff itself with misfired quips upon quips, mistaking fluff for quality. Trading sincerity for schtick can deflate the humor (often nostalgic nods to the movie) when desperate to grab laughs. Although the musical is critical of the corporate grind of Christmas, a referential script can border into product placement. High-wattage star Sean Astin, as Santa Claus, finds his charms trapped in cloying references — ironically underlining how Astin himself effectively doubles as corporate antagonist Mr. Greenway.

Any production of Elf necessarily rests on the shoulder of the fellow in the oversized elf’s costume. (As those familiar with the plot are aware, Buddy the Elf is not really an elf, if there be such a thing as a real elf; rather, he’s a human raised by elves and exiled from the North Pole to midtown Manhattan.) Unlike prior Buddys we’ve seen—drama critics who stick around long enough tend to revisit plays and musicals, like it or not—Grey Henson has the soul of one of those old-fashioned musical-comedy comedians, striving for and achieving laughter on a moment-by-moment basis.

Buddy, the 30-ish human raised as an elf at the North Pole but now thrust into the real world, could be insufferable in the wrong hands. He must burst into every scene full of glee and naive wonderment, yet every bouncing ball must roll to a stop once in a while. Even more than original star Will Ferrell in the film, Grey Henson knows the value of stillness. He can warble and kick up his heels with the best of them, but just as suddenly utter a sincere sentiment to touch the heart. You’re never sure when he’ll dial things up to 11 or simply listen and react, which keeps his performance interesting from start to finish.

The last time “Elf: The Musical” was on Broadway, during the holiday season a dozen years ago, I saw an autism-friendly performance of it. This turned out to be a great way to view this stage adaptation of the 2003 Will Ferrell movie, since my attention was directed almost entirely to the dexterity and decency with which the cast delighted the sometimes-unpredictable audience. That fond memory began fading before the end of the first song of this new revival, which opens tonight at the Marquis Theater for another holiday run.