I have the privilege of seeing one of my favorite films hitting the Broadway stage. The new Broadway musical “Anastasia” did not disappoint.
This musical, based off of the famous 1997 film “Anastasia,” exceeded all of my expectations. Though it did not follow the movie in every way, the adaptation was flawless and did the story justice.
The original film is based on the historical event of the murder of the Romanov family in imperial Russia. The basic plot is that instead of the entire family having been murdered one daughter survived, but she lost all of her memories of being the princess Anastasia. So, she is taking a journey to her past in hopes of finding out who she really is.
For those of you who love the movie, like me, the musical does not disappoint. Although it changes the main villain, I assume to make it more family friendly, almost all of the songs from the film are performed on the stage. Even though there were some songs they did not perform, such as “In the Dark of the Night,” they took the melody of the bridge and created a whole new song using that. Although that number does not make a direct appearance it is still present.
Going along with music adapting from film to musical, the order of the numbers also changed. Don’t worry, the first song performed is still “A Rumor in Saint Petersburg,” but songs such as “Journey to the Past and Learn to Do it” were not in the order as the movie. Although the musical directors changed the order of the songs it still made sense. In fact, with the way the musical was adapted, the chosen order made much more sense than the order of the original soundtrack. Also, some new songs were obviously added because we were introduced to new characters—but these numbers were just as spectacular as the originals
The cast not only looked like the movie characters, but all were very vocally talented. They did each musical number beautifully; the cast should be very proud. Although each cast member had stunning voices some were hard to hear like the character Dimitri, played by Australian pop singer Cody Simpson. He definitely struggled with projection. I blame his struggle on that fact that Cody is not used to having to sing without a microphone since this was his first Broadway performance. Other than this minor issue everything else about the show was amazing.
The costuming. Beautiful! Somehow the costume designers nailed matching each actors costume to the ones we see in the film. Every dress, suit, and even pajamas matched the way they looked in the movie.
Then the sets were immaculate. Specifically, where the characters go to the ballet; it was like a show within a show. We had the characters singing in their theatre seats then the graceful ballet dancers performing on stage. A lot of the backgrounds were done through special effects and projectors, but it did not feel fake. The stage designers knew who to use the special effect to an extent where it still felt real; they did not stretch the limits of what an on-stage projector could do.
Overall, it was just a spectacular show that people of all ages would enjoy. Even if you do not know the story from the movie or based off of the history of the Romanov family, it is an enjoyable show. I went with four of my family members, three of which never heard of the story before, and they loved it just as much as I did. So, take a journey into the city and follow the story of young Anastasia who travels through Europe to find the family she knew Once Upon a December.