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.
For the everyone else – adults anyway – the updated Elf remains as much a mixed bag as it was during its previous two Broadway stagings in 2010 and 2012, with one major improvement: Grey Henson, the immensely likable, pitched-to-the-rafters firecracker from Mean Girls and Shucked, steps as easily into Buddy’s green winklepickers as Cinderella ever did a glass slilpper.
Henson and the rest of the cast (actually, the rest of the production) go big and loud in the style of children’s theater, with no joke (including some obviously recent additions) or emotion underplayed.
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