Review of Elf (Broadway in Chicago)

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Elf. It was about an elf who has just found out that he is actually a human and his name was Buddy (Will Blum) and he went to go find his father (Larry Cahn) in New York. And it was also about how it doesn't really matter if you are different. You should just embrace how you are different. I thought this was a funny show and I loved how they used a lot of quotes from the movie.

I really liked the character of Jovie (Lindsay Nicole Chambers). I thought she was a great singer and also a great actress. I think she seemed like she really was mean but then when she fell in love with Buddy you felt like she had really changed. I thought that her song "Never Fall in Love" was really funny because she wasn't just saying never fall in love with anybody; she was saying, "Never fall in love…with an elf." I think the song was a very funny song, but it was sung very beautifully. There was this part where Buddy and Jovie went out for ice skating and that's when Jovie fell in love with him. I liked how the ice skating was actually roller skating. They looked like they were actually ice skating but they weren't. Jovie is an important character because she completely changes in the course of the play because of Buddy.

The scene where the Fake Santa (Erick Buckley) was putting kids on his lap was hilarious. I thought it was a good decision how the Fake Santa had a gangster accent because then you knew that he wasn't the real Santa and you knew that Buddy was right about how he wasn't the real Santa. I really liked how he said, "You don't smell like Santa. You smell like beef and cheese." I liked that so much because gangsters do sometimes smell like beef and cheese (because in movies they eat old sandwiches) and it was funny that Buddy knew how Santa smelled.

I loved the song with the fake Santa Clauses because it was really funny. They acted like they were sexy ladies because they were on these chairs and were doing all these moves like sexy ladies but they were Santa Clauses. They took off their coats but they had suspenders and shirts and pillows to make them look fat in their belly. The only other person I have seen dancing on a chair was Liza Minnelli's daughter--figuratively. I thought that the interaction between Buddy and all the Fake Santas was awesome because of one of Buddy's lines which was, "I promise I won't hurt any of you. I have been told you are fake and you just want to make children happy." And then he's like, "that was really nice of you guys."

I liked how the bond between Michael (Noah Marlowe) and Buddy kind of happened when Buddy put syrup on his noodles and you knew they were going to be friends. I think that this kid performer did a great job. He really went with all the emotions of the show and he didn't seem dull at all. Some kid performers are very robot-like, but Noah was very good. He was good because he really interacted with the other people and he didn't overact anything. And I think he was also a great singer.

This is the paragraph of the things I didn't like very much. The first thing I think is how the elves tap danced. I would have liked it better if they had gotten kids to actually tap dance instead of just using people on their knees with tap dancing sounds. I also thought that in "There Is a Santa Claus" that they should have used a shadow puppet of Santa Claus flying in his sleigh rather than just a light.

People who would like this show are people who like elves, fake Santa Clauses doing sexy-lady dances, and friendship spaghetti. People would enjoy this show with their families because it is a fun Christmas show. I think this show should be for ages 5 and up--five-year-olds that are okay with kissing and knowing that those Santas that you sit on their knee at Macy's are fake.

Photos: Amy Boyle