There's something big, green and ill-tempered at the Plaza Theatre, and it's not a wicked witch.
It's Shrek, the pale green ogre with the buttercup-shaped antenna ears and grumpy disposition, which, we learn in "Shrek The Musical," might have something to do with being kicked out into the not-so-real world at the ripe old age of 7.
In this season of "Wicked," the U2 of touring musical theater around which so much of this season's Broadway series at the Plaza revolves, it's a musical version of a 2001 computer-animated movie that got things off to a fairy tale start Tuesday before a smiling crowd of 1,500 kids, parents and grandparents (it repeats again at 7:30 tonight).
"STM" is very much a modern day fairy tale, a slight variation on the first of the four hit movies, itself based on William Steig's 1990 picture book. It even opens with Shrek emerging from a giant storybook to tell his "once upon a time ..." story of being sent on his way as a boy, followed by Princess Fiona telling her own tale of banishment to a dragon-guarded, lava moat-surrounded castle.
What follows is two hours of the kind of crisp choreography, cleverly worded songs, knowing humor, solid singing and high-energy young performers that the Great White Way's been spitting out for the last several years. "Shrek," in fact, ran for about a year on Broadway in 2008, winning a Tony for its imaginative costumes, before hitting the road.
Of course, that's what this big, padded Shrek does near the beginning of the show. Various fairy tale characters, including a shrill-voiced Pinocchio, are vanquished to his swamp.
The only way for him to get relief is to head to the castle of the fey, effeminate, half-pint and fully overcompensating Lord Farquaad, where he encounters and can't shake Donkey, the overeager burro with the verbal diarrhea. In exchange for the deed to the swamp, Shrek and Donkey agree to free Fiona from her tower prison.
You can pretty much figure how things turn out, even if you've never seen the movie, but it's the getting there that's so much fun, from the fart jokes and tap-dancing rats to the height-challenged king wannabe and 25-foot blushing Dragon (operated by four black-garbed puppeteers).
The movie is not a musical, so Jeanine Tesori, who wrote the music, and Pulitzer Prize-winner David Lindsay-Abaire, who wrote the book and lyrics, obviously had a lot of fun fleshing out the details in the 21 rock, pop and R&B songs they created.
Some, like Shrek's "Big Bright Beautiful World" and Fiona's "I Know It's Today," use musical theater conventions to help us peer into the characters and, in the latter's case, lets Fiona sing at three different stages of her locked-up life. "Travel Song" and "I Think You Got Beat" move the story forward and set up vital interaction between key characters.
Some, like "What's Up, Duloc?" and "Freak Flag" are just plain funny.
Stephen Sposito, in his professional directorial debut, keeps the pacing brisk and his cast on its toes. The colorful sets change rapidly and some have to switch from one elaborately cartoonish costume to another and props like the 25-foot dragon and Lord Farquaad's fake legs not only fit in but steal thunder from the flesh-and-blood actors.
It is a young, non-Equity cast, meaning most of them don't have their union cards yet, but like the cast of last spring's "Legally Blonde," they aren't just hungry, they're gifted.
The multi-talented Liz Shivner, who played Belle in the "Disney's Beauty & the Beast" production that stopped here last November, is the real standout. She's a triple threat who can sing, dance and do comedy without missing a beat. She made it look effortless, playing Fiona like some fractured fairy tale version of Debra Messing's Lucille Ball-inspired Grace Adler on TV's "Will & Grace."
She's complemented by Merritt David Janes as the comically scene-stealing Lord Farquaard, who, it turns out, is the offspring of Snow White and a certain diminutive miner named Grumpy. Janes captures' the would-be-king's sissified sexual ambiguity. It was just plain funny watching him tromp around on padded knees covered by Farquaad's tiny, stuffed legs.
Lukas Poost, making his professional debut, brings a conflicted earnestness and a solid tenor to the title role, though he needs to be more consistent with the Mike Myers Scottish brogue he affects. Andre' Jordan, who was in "Legally Blonde," brings a bright, tooty smile and the right combination of goofiness, sincerity and lonely desperation to the Donkey role.
While all the hype this season is about that Feb. 1-12 run of "Wicked" (individual tickets go on sale at 7 a.m. Oct. 28 at the Plaza), it's easy to overlook the other shows on the bill. "Shrek" may not have the cache the Oz musical does, but it has enough beguiling charm, youthful energy and a clever humor to fill Shrek's swamp.
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