Pink and powerful

Omigod, you guys! Rainbow Stage kicked off its penultimate summer production Thursday with a high-octane joy machine bathed in a sea of pink.

Inspired by the 2001 Hollywood film starring Reese Witherspoon, and Amanda Brown’s same-titled novel, the award-winning Legally Blonde: The Musical — featuring a book by Heather Hach, with music/lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin — opened on Broadway in April 2007, followed by a subsequent West End run.

The tale — equal parts cheesy rom-com and potent siren call for female autonomy and empowerment — focuses on quintessential Cali-girl Elle Woods (a pitch-perfect Claire Mac Master). A proud daughter and president of Delta Nu sorority house, she enrols at Harvard Law School to win back her upwardly mobile ex-boyfriend, Warner Huntington III (Duncan Cox).

Laser-focused on marrying a “Jackie, not a Marilyn,” Warner dreams of becoming an American senator, latching onto uber-preppy fellow pupil Vivienne Kensington (Julie Davis), who becomes Elle’s arch nemesis.

This is a big bones musical — there’s even an all-too-brief tap number — with director Alexandra Herzog squeezing maximum entertainment value out of her mostly well-balanced cast.

The pinktastic production boasts a particularly strong cast of principals with many beloved fan favourites, as well as several newbies treading these boards for the first time.

New York City-born, Toronto-based Claire Mac Master is one of the latter, marking a sparkling Rainbow debut as the show’s plucky protagonist. Seemingly born to play Elle Woods, she displays her own steely stamina throughout the inordinately demanding vocal role.

She immediately establishes herself as a gal-pal you’d love to hang with, showing off powerhouse vocals as she belts out Positive while joined by her trusty sidekicks, the Greek Chorus of Serena (Dutchess Cayetano), Pilar (Esethu Gwintsa) and Margot (Megan Fry).

More importantly, she resists making her fashion-loving character stereotypical, the proverbial “dumb blond.” Endlessly optimistic, she coaches her BFF, salon owner Paulette Buonufonte (Colleen Furlan) on how to reel in her own love interest, UPS delivery man Kyle (the always hilarious Jeff Rivet) during Bend and Snap.

You can’t help but fall in love with her or cheer for her success. Her sun-kissed, “can-do” approach to life is infectious as she ultimately triumphs over her adversaries.

For his part, Cox oozes with confident swagger as her aviator-shades-wearing beau, breaking her heart during Serious — the briskly paced narrative’s inciting incident — and later eating humble pie after realizing what he wanted was there all along.

Another standout performance belongs to Daniel Bogart as Professor Callahan, lording power over his pupils during Blood in the Water, sung with delicious relish as he eggs them on towards ruthlessness.

Kleenex is well advised for the chameleonic Furlan’s no-holds-barred ballad Ireland, her lilting lyrics soaked with life’s painful injustices in a performance that nearly stopped the show.

Davis crafts an emotionally nuanced, “less-is-more” Vivienne, wholly believable as she climbs the ladder with her new fiancé Warner before finally speaking her own truth to power.

In another Rainbow debut, Ryan Brown’s portrayal of Emmett — Callahan’s earnest, corduroy-garbed teaching assistant who falls in love with Elle — will likely deepen as the run progresses. This may or may not alleviate their palpable lack of physical chemistry. Any prospective romantic partner of this spitfire in heels would pale in comparison. This one did.

It’s a no-brainer that the show’s canine stars — Elle’s faithful pooch Bruiser (Lil’Beast Jasper/Sunny Dean) and Paulette’s bulldog Rufus (Nova/Wally) — would elicit loud oohs and ahs during each of their strategically timed appearances.

Herzog’s stage blocking — with added comical flourishes, including a ginormous TV screen for fitness guru and accused murderess Brooke Wyndham’s (Alyssa Crockett) exercise videos and teeny salon curlers for Bruiser — proved effective throughout, though there were several missed opportunities with dialogue delivery, and more specifically, beat changes.

How much more effective it would have been for Elle to take a longer pause before uttering several of her key lines and the show’s overriding themes — “What about love?” springs to mind — which would have underscored her later solo, Legally Blonde, filled with searing emotion as she rues being “one big blond joke.”

Josh Assor’s razor-sharp choreography ranges from funky hip-hop grooves to one of the night’s niftiest hits, Whipped Into Shape, performed entirely with jump ropes. The ensemble also delivers a feisty opener, Omigod You Guys, despite some initial sound/reverb issues that obfuscated their lyrics at times.

An overabundance of hazy stage smoke at the top of the show makes it feel as if we are watching the Delta Nu sorority sisters through a puff of cotton candy; thankfully it clears by the time we get to Harvard.

Set/properties designer Beyata Hackborn creates an eye-popping playground framed by a trio of multi-dimensional, quasi-proscenium arches evoking stylized hearts, reminding us that love is still the fuel for all the shenanigans taking place throughout the nearly three-hour (including intermission) production, artfully lit by Matthew Lawler.

A 13-piece live pit orchestra is crisply led by music director Renate Tabas, while Sean Mulcahy’s spot-on costumes range from Ivy League chic to electric spandex leggings and Malibu-flavoured togs.

There are some uncomfortable edges with the material, including some archaic attitudes towards homosexuality. Rebecca Ward (Rainbow debut) does a fine job as the show’s requisite, rage-filled “token lesbian” Enid. So does accused pool boy Nikos (Reid McTavish) as the court, led by the Judge (Rochelle Kives) struggles to determine his sexuality in tongue-in-cheek ensemble number Gay or European? that leads to his acquittal and consequently launches Elle’s successful law career.

But in the end, and beyond all the fluff, this feel-good show presents an open-and-shut case for staying true to one’s own personality and values, with feisty feminist Elle leading the charge into new, pink-infused worlds of possibility.

holly.harris@shaw.ca