![]() ![]() He was modeled after Grumpy in Disney’s Snow White. He’s voiced by Danny DeVito and is a satyr, half-man half-faun. In the film, Philoctetes is the trainer who gets Hercules in fighting shape. The gods are decked out in bright, colorful garb designed by Emilio Sosa that befits the majesty of the set design by Dane Laffrey and the stunning lighting design by Jeff Croiter. As do his minions, Pain and Panic, played by Reggie De Leon and Jeff Blumenkrantz. Shuler Hensley as Hades looks like he stepped right out of the cartoon. ![]() If you think it’s unfair of me to compare a musical to an animated movie, I can assure you that the show more than invites the comparison. Bradley Gibson does a fine job as what should be Act One Hercules, but once he becomes the local celebrity full of bravado and accolades, it doesn’t feel as though as major shift has happened, because visually-it hasn’t. Was any cent spared?Īt a time when every pop star’s bio-musical includes three versions of the diva (Guppy, Goodtime Gal, and Geezer), why would you only have one actor playing Hercules when the movie painstakingly shows you the protagonist transitioning from a scrawny pipsqueak into a pin-up? It would be one thing if that were all merely cosmetic, but the transformation is a key part of the story. Yes, there are puppets, but there are also moving columns, fire, streamers over the audience, montages, and monster battles. Hercules might be one of the most ambitious screen-to-stage musicals you’ll ever see, and it’s certainly the biggest swing Disney’s ever taken. Lately, audiences seem less interested in the interpretive when it comes to adaptations and more interested in how-did-they-do-that magic onstage (the Stolen Child effect), and so while the Central Park offering of Hercules a few years ago may have leaned heavily on the world of pure imagination, the primetime version premiering at Papermill Playhouse is a lot more literal.Īnd when it’s literal-Wow, is it impressive. The only thing standing in its way would be the sheer imagination of the film itself. ![]() “ So close we tripped at the finish line.”ĭisney’s 1997 animated film Hercules may not have the prestige of The Little Mermaid or Beauty & The Beast, and it doesn’t have the dark allure of Hunchback or Tarzan, but it has a diehard fanbase and seems prime for the musical theater treatment. ![]()
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