Finding Magic at the Firehouse Theatre: Shrek: The Musical

When my son asked me to join him on a weekend trip, I knew I’d enjoy spending time with him. What I didn’t expect was one of the best nights of live theater I’ve ever experienced. 

My son and I took a trip from Houston to Dallas over the weekend mainly to get out of town for a couple of days, do some shopping, and meet up with some of his friends. My job was to book the hotel and, strangely, pick up a pair of tickets for “Shrek: The Musical” at the Firehouse Theatre. When I asked my son why the play, his answer was simple: “Dominic’s in the play and it’s the last weekend of the run.” Good enough for me.

The Firehouse Theater is a community theater in Farmers Branch set in a renovated fire station. The facility is charming, cozy, and intimate. The theater space is ten rows of approximately twenty seats per row so every single seat is good. Every member of the staff I talked with were very friendly and inviting, happy to greet the Friday night crowd that filled nearly every seat. 

Now, I had seen the movie—who hasn’t?—so I know the basic story but it’s been many a year since my last viewing so I came into the musical nearly fresh. Like The Lion King before it (among others), Jeanine Tesori (music) and David Lindsay-Abaire (book and lyrics) took a ninety-minute movie and expanded it to over two hours. They filled in gaps in the original movie, expanded scenes, and gave us new ones, mixed with a lot of various musical styles that kept you guessing what kind of song the next one would be.

The only thing I knew ahead of Friday’s curtain was that Shrek: The Musical existed. I came in cold, not knowing what to expect. Within the first few minutes, I saw how much thought, talent, care, and heart had gone into bringing this story to the stage. This was not simply a recreation of a familiar movie. Under the leadership of director Laura Jennings, it was a production with its own personality, energy, and charm.

The Trio at the Heart of the Show

When you play the title character, you have to bring it. And when said title character is a larger-than-life green ogre, you have even bigger shoes to fill. After a flashback to when Shrek was a wee ogre (Jacob Cazarez), Blake Rice walks on stage, slaps five with his young co-star, and takes over. And boy does he! In his debut with the Firehouse Theatre, Rice has the chops to bring all of Shrek’s emotions to life: exasperation, loneliness, more exasperation, love, hope, braggadocio, and even more exasperation. And lest you wonder about the accent Mike Myers adopted in the original movie franchise, Rice does a spot-on accent throughout the entire performance, both in the dialogue and the singing. His singing ranges from both the small and intimate to roof-raising. 

Three actresses play Fiona at different stages of her life. In a wonderful charming introduction, young Fiona (Noa Sophia Burch) sings about being locked in the tower with all the joy and hope of the young. Megan Lagemann plays the teen version, still mostly filled with joy but with hope fraying at the edges. By the time Hailey Hatfield takes over as the adult Fiona, joy has joined hope in being ripped asunder as patience is rapidly wearing out. And this is where Hatfield gives you a glimpse of what she brings to the role. In her first song, she fluctuates between charm and frustration all in her voice and the choice asides and knowing glances she gives the audience. For the rest of the play, Hatfield expertly uses her voice to convey Fiona’s various emotions, complimenting everything with a body language that augments her character, none more so than the “bonding” scenes she and Rice perform as Shrek and Fiona begin to fall in love.

When it comes to Shrek, any actor must deal with the shadow of Mike Myers. But you could argue that the larger shadow is Eddie Murphy as Donkey. In the movie, Murphy voices Donkey as just this side of manic, a few notches north of over the top. When I learned my son’s friend, Dominick Jenkins was playing Donkey in the musical, I was intrigued. What would he do? In short, he made the role of Donkey his own. He never came across as mimicking Murphy. In fact, I quickly forgot Murphy originated the role, so captivated was I in Jenkins’s performance. With the physical size difference between Jenkins and Rice, I actually got some echoes of that old Looney Tunes cartoon with Spike, the giant bulldog, and Chester, the smaller terrier. 

The Supporting Cast Brings the Magic to Life

One of the things I forgot about from the movie was the stature of Lord Farquaad, the villain of the story. So when Austin Bender-Davis, um, “walked” out on stage…on his knees, with small, puppet legs attached to the front of his own legs, I laughed out loud. The visual never failed to make the audience howl, and Bender-Davis played up his role to the crowd, getting us to boo and clap and extol a loving “aww” on command. 

When it comes to community theater, there are often more roles than there are actors. The same was true on Friday, and I got great joy in watching how the ensemble cast quick-changed from costume to costume and never missed a beat. What I always enjoy doing when watching live theater is to isolate one or two performers and zero in on what they do throughout the presentation. Two stood out for me. 

Caitlin Martelle excelled in all her character parts, but she is also the designer of Gingy, the gingerbread cookie. Every time we see him, he’s on a flat board, but his mouth is a puppet, manipulated and voiced by Martelle. I’m a huge fan of how The Lion King on Broadway used puppetry to bring animals to life. Martelle gave Gingy’s mouth its own flair for the dramatic, always synced with her voice work. And, happily, she made no pretense about herself doing the voice. 

Kenneth Lane was an ensemble player, but the character he played most was the big bad wolf, specifically in “grandma’s” robe. Later in the show, when the ensemble are all playing the fairy tale creatures and singing “Freak Flag” (the underlying message I wholeheartedly embrace and live by), the wolf sheds the robe to reveal a shiny, sequined evening dress that Lane uses to great effect for the rest of the play. But it was his facial expressions when he and the rest of the cast were on stage but in the background that told me exactly what the wolf was thinking and that Lane himself gave the character a backstory and a fully formed life.

Leaving the Theater Inspired

By the time this review goes live, the cast and crew will have performed the last two shows of this run. But I won’t forget grinning ear to ear during this entire performance. I absolutely loved this show. And it demonstrates something fundamental in our modern culture: community theater has a wonderful habit of reminding you why live performance matters. No phones, no distractions, just cast, crew, and audience joined together for a few hours of uninterrupted and delightful joy. 

Two things stirred in me after the show. The primary one is simple: I wish I lived closer to the Firehouse Theatre because I would get season tickets! And I’m really excited/bummed that their next show is Grease, one of my all-time favorite musicals. When I asked Dominick after the show if the Firehouse group were going to do the movie or the stage version, he said they paid extra to get the movie songs. That makes me so excited. 

That second thing I thought about on Friday evening? Watching the cast and crew of the Firehouse Theatre perform Shrek: The Musical made me want to perform. When I told my son that, he joked that I might need to take voice lessons. Yeah, I can’t sing that well—it’s why I play the alto sax—but that doesn’t mean I can’t find a community theater in Houston and give it a go. I’ve done it before. And after seeing and feeling the joy in that theater on Friday night, I might unfurl my own flag and try again. 

Note:

Here’s a link to the cast and crew biographies. Upon reading it, I was thrilled to see so many debuts with this run.