Elf

If you still delight in an annual viewing of the TV puppet-toon “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” or “Santa Clause is Coming to Town,” ELF is quite like those holiday specials come to life. Based on the film of the same name, Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin have composed a peppy Broadway score to go with Thomas Meehan and Bob Martin’s adaptation of the screenplay. This is no surprise of a score, but it is tuneful and it serves the proceedings, which are all full of delight, good will and holiday cheer. A nice new addition to the Christmas song catalog is the less than creatively titled, but wholly charming “A Christmas Song.” A clever number called “I’ll Believe in You”––a kind of anti-Christmas list––puts conditions on whether or not Beth Leavel as the mom and Matthew Gumley as the son will believe in Santa Clause and the two sing extremely well together. Mark Jacoby is the overworked father who neglects his family while the son just wants a day with his dad for Christmas. Anyone who can deliver that gift must be Santa Clause!

However, the main story here is that the Elf in question, Buddy, played with delightful glee by Sebastian Arcelus, has been informed that he’s actually human (which explains why he’s so tall), so he heads down to New York to find his real dad––the overworked Mark Jacoby. Either by accident or on purpose; by his innocence or his unorthodox resourcefulness, Buddy manages to fix the family and bring enough Christmas cheer to New York to keep Santa’s magic sleigh afloat (George Wendt supplies a cuddly off beat Santa). Along the way Buddy even finds a girlfriend in the depressed Amy Spanger whose life is brightened by his positive outlook and habit of breaking into cheerful song.

Casey Nicholaw has staged an old-fashioned musical comedy of the kind one might have seen around the late 1940s on David Rockwell’s wing and drop set adorned with Natasha Katz’s colorful lighting and animated projections. Gregg Barnes’ costumes walk the line between TV Christmas Variety Special and a true expression of character, which is to say: exactly as it should be.

This light hearted and bouncy show has as much for the adults as for the kids, but it is aimed directly at the audience that needs a little Christmas now and no one else. It makes a nice alternative to THE NUTCRACKER or the RADIO CITY CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR. Humbugs stay home.