Pretty Woman the musical, Broadway Across Canada. Photo by Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

In Pretty Woman the Musical, that arrived Tuesday at the Jube in a Broadway Across Canada touring production, there are two characters you can’t take your eyes off. There’s fun to be had when they’re onstage; you miss them when they’re not.

Unfortunately, neither one is the Pretty Woman or the Pretty Woman’s sugar daddy. One is a sort of street-wise narrative sage named Happy Man, who pops up in an amusing variety of guises, including a sympathetic high-end concierge with dancing feet (on opening night played, with great dexterity, by understudy Michael Dalke). The other is a bellhop named Giulio (the winsome scene-stealer Trent Soyster). Now there’s a connection worth pursuing.

Ah, but then there’s the matter of the fairytale romantic fantasy in which a financial transaction — between a suave but soulless billionaire and a beautiful Hollywood Boulevard sex worker — turns into true love. Side note: the warm ovation of the cheering opening night crowd at the Jube certainly tends to reinforce the proposition that a financial transaction between Hollywood and Broadway can turn into true love. In any case, I’m in the minority as you’ll see; the audience loved it.

Jessie Davidson in Pretty Woman, Broadway Across Canada. Photo by Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade.

Edward the corporate raider (Adam Pascal, who famously was in the original Rent) hires vivacious prostitute Vivian (Jessie Davidson) to be his escort for a week, and tutors her to pass for classy amongst the wealthy hoi-poloi. Shopping on Rodeo Drive is heavily involved. Yes, a platinum credit card exchanges hands; intimacy and trust don’t come any more sincere than that. More fun than that, though is a dance tutorial from Happy Man as the concierge, that turns into an ensemble number, charmingly choreographed by Mitchell.

No offence to the energetic, committed musical theatre talent on display in Jerry Mitchell’s handsome production, led by Davidson and Pascal. But the Pygmalion model of make-overs takes a certain bravado in 2023; it probably did in 1990, too, but the star charisma of the movie couple glossed over the crasser substrata. And here that glossing is seriously undermined, not by any real inadequacies of the lead couple Davidson and Pascal, but by the drecky banality of the songs they sing.

The music and lyrics are by Bryan Adams (yes, that Bryan Adams) and his song-writing partner Jim Vallance. And they leave Pascal, for example, explaining in an endlessly repetitive song why Edward has taken up with Vivian: “there’s something about her … she really is quite something … she’s more than meets the eye ….” Etc. Etc. Later, but before intermission, in a song called Freedom, he’ll confess, in an extended off-the-rack rotation of that word, to his need for, yes, freedom. “I felt freedom, sweet freedom, like I’ve never felt before. And I know that I need more.,” he sings à propos of … something. “I know it might sound strange I believe that I can change … And when I look into the future I can see another me, and I’m free.” Yikes.

No wonder the performance from Pascal, who’s a bona fide Broadway star, seems a little lacklustre. Dramatic tension, thus undermined in Act I, isn’t really sustainable in Act II since the corporate rich guy has already bought into his own redemption. Davidson, who has a galactic smile and sparkle, gets all the physical comic business left by the bellhop. And she fares better. The book (by Garry Marshall and original screenwriter J.F. Lawton) does some finessing with the story on her behalf. It leans into the idea that Vivian has a modicum of what we call in this part of the 21st century ‘agency’. “It’s me who’s in control,. I stay who, I say when, I say how much….”

Adam Pascal and Jessie Davidson in Pretty Woman. Photo by Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade.

And then they go shopping. Which is the true self-fulfilment in Pretty Woman the Musical, and something even Cinderella didn’t get. Shopping has a big production number, with energetic singing and dancing and armfuls of gorgeous costumes from designer Gregg Barnes. And in another generic Adams/Vallance song I Can’t Go Back, Vivian realizes … she can’t go back. Back to the world of the street and no money and no credit cards and no champagne. Yes, the world of the well-heeled, with all its shop girls “sucking up” to rich clientele as Edward puts it drily, is hers to command.

As for the supporting characters, the cast gives them their best shot: Jessica Crouch as Vivian’s tough-cookie best friend Kit, Matthew Stock as Edward’s smarmy lawyer, Jade Amber as Violetta in the production of La Traviata to which Edward takes Vivian, in her show-stopper red gown. Unfortunately, poor Edward has to take on Verdi by singing another of those blank songs as he watches Vivian watching the opera. “You and I, we’ve got something going on. You and I, how could this be wrong?” Giuseppe is smirking in his grave.

Mitchell’s production is lovely to look at, appealingly theatrical, slickly staged. The locations conjure Hollywood Boulevard, the penthouse at the Beverly Wiltshire, or the opera (where Vivian arrives in the iconic red gown), as graceful lacey grid-work set-pieces arrive from above. And everything is drenched in glowing neon colours (design by Kenneth Posner and Philip S. Rosenberg).

As fantasies go, this one’s a looker. It just needs something to sing.

REVIEW

Pretty Woman The Musical

Broadway Across Canada

Created by: Garry Marshall & J.F. Lawton (book), Bryan Adams & Jim Vallance (music and lyrics

Starring: Jessie Davidson, Adam Pascal, Jessica Crouch, Travis Ward-Osborne (understudied by Michael Dalke), Jade Amber,  Chris Cardozo, Trent Soyster, Matthew Stocke

Where: Jubilee Auditorium

Running: through Sunday

Tickets: ticketmaster.ca, edmonton.broadway.com