Ragged around the edges but blessed with some terrific lead performances, Cupcake Theatre’s intimate revival of Broadway’s Legally Blonde would have me singing its praises even louder had the show not started thirty minutes late to accommodate walk-ins.

Recent American Idol favorite (and Phi Beta Kappa Stanford grad) Margie Mays stars captivatingly as Elle Woods, the most bodaciously brainy blonde beauty Harvard University has ever admitted to its hallowed halls.

Heather Hach’s 2007 Tony-nominated book has jilted UCLA Fashion Merchandising grad Elle acing her LSATs, winning over the Harvard University Admissions board, and entering Harvard Law School in a bid to win back the heart of ex-boyfriend Warner Huntington III (Thomas Hollow), who’s dumped her in favor of blue-blooded raven-haired Vivienne Kensington (Renée Wylder).

Naturally, Elle finds herself in for a lot more than she bargained for in Ivy League adventures featuring, among others, her nerdishly charming upper class law student mentor Emmett (Max DeLoach), her Machiavellian Professor Callahan (understudy Brandon Kallen), her hairstylist/new best buddy Paulette (Renée Cohen), and fitness guru Brook Wyndham (Megan Stys), on trial for murdering her much older multimillionaire spouse.

Also along for the ride are Elle’s three best sorority sisters Serena (Erica Cruz), Margot (Joelle Tshudy), and Pilar (Shani Hamilton), left behind in SoCal but still very much present as Elle’s “Greek Chorus.”

Suffice it to say that the road to a Harvard Law Degree and (hopefully) Warner’s hand in marriage is a rocky one, filled with unexpected twists and turns.

Legally Blonde The Musical adds to the movie’s proven crowd-pleasing plot one of the brightest and best Broadway scores of this century (Tony-nominated music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin), songs which actually advance the plot rather than simply providing an entertaining musical interlude between stretches of dialog.

That’s not to say that Hach’s book is superfluous. It isn’t. It’s funny, charming, and intelligent—and fills in all the blanks.

For once, though, a Broadway musical has songs that are not only tuneful and catchy, they’re also absolutely integral to the show.

All of this adds up to a movie-to-stage adaptation that, at eleven productions and counting, I never get tired of seeing, and though its latest incarnation isn’t all it could be, I once again found myself falling under Elle Woods’ spell, particularly with leading lady Mays making the part engagingly, quirkily, luminously her own with power pipes to match her beguiling charms. (All that’s needed is some additional work on making Elle’s spoken dialog more easily understood, but since this is amazingly Mays’ musical theater debut, I’m willing to give her a pass.)

Directors Brayden Hade and Christopher Jewell Valentin and choreographers Jonathon Flemmings, Hamilton, and Rehyan Rivera keep things lively from start to finish, with all-around terrific performances/fabulous vocals by Mays’ aforementioned costars.

A charismatic DeLoach makes scruffy Emmett the most instantly likeable of romantic leads, Cohen has great fun as a fabulously feisty Paulette, Stys is a tae-bo-tastic Brooke, and Kallen oozes smarm as the perviest of profs.

Wylder’s rafter-reading pipes make it easy to forgive Vivienne’s mean-girl ways even before she sees the light, Cruz, Hamilton, and Tshudy are vivacious delights as Elle’s three besties, and with Hollow’s GQ-ready good looks, it’s it easy to see why a pre-Harvard Elle would find herself bewitched.

Ensemble members (at the performance reviewed here) Kristen Daniels, Jacqueline Dennis, Jonathan Blake Flemmings, Ariana Nicole George, Hade, Chloe Haven, Euriamis Losada (name misspelled twice in the program), Stephanie Mayer, Jason Straub, Haley Wolff, and Valentin perform enthusiastically throughout, with special snaps to Haven’s weirdly wonderful Chutney.

Designwise, this Legally Blonde is pretty much black-box-basic on a mostly bare set with occasionally flimsy set pieces, and the show’s wardrobe and wigs are somewhat of a mixed bunch.

Fortunately, the most vivid and gorgeous of 3-D LED backdrop projections (presumably by production designer Hade) go a long way towards making up for Legally Blonde’s other design shortcomings, that and James G. Smith’s lighting. (The views of Harvard and Ireland are noteworthy stunners.)

Music director Dylan Price and fellow musicians Alec De Kervor, Sean Knapp, and Greg Niemi make for the rockingest of live bands.

Legally Blonde is produced by Michael Pettenato. Marcos Rodriguez is sound supervisor. Mayer is stage manager and Matthew Noah is assistant stage manager. Ashley Vierra is house manager.

Though I’ve seen better Legally Blondes, audiences in search of musical theater magic could do far worse than to check out Cupcake’s latest. And with Margie Mays making Elle Woods irresistibly her own, it was easy to once again fall under her spell this eleventh time around, late start or not.

Cupcake Theater, 671 N Berendo St., Los Angeles.
www.cupcaketheater.com

–Steven Stanley
April 22, 2022

Tags: Cupcake Theater, Heather Hach, Laurence O'Keefe, Los Angeles Theater Review, Nell Benjamin