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'The Little Mermaid' dazzles at DPAC

Take a trip under the sea during Disney's "The Little Mermaid" at DPAC.

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Little Mermaid
By
Laura Worthington
DURHAM, N.C. — When Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” first arrived in theatres in 1989, I saw it at least three times. The soundtrack on cassette tape blasted through my Fisher Price tape player to the point that I’m sure my parents regretted both purchases. I still will not eat crab to this day because my love for Sebastian is just that deep.

You probably can guess which Disney princess is my favorite by now.

Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” is running at Durham Performing Arts Center this week, and I’m willing to bet many of the audience members arrived just like I did with many fond memories of the movie and its Grammy Award winning music by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman.

You know the basic plot. A headstrong mermaid, Ariel, falls in love with a prince/sailor, saves his life and stockpiles human gadgets and gizmos a plenty (a tad stalkerish). Her dad goes ballistic, and Ariel hightails it straight to the evil sea witch Ursula who makes a legally-binding deal with Ariel to make her human for three days in exchange for her beautiful voice. Ariel has to make Prince Eric kiss her before sunset on the third day to stay part of his world or her soul belongs to Ursula.

The show covers all of those bases and a majority of the movie’s most memorable moments but adds some much needed character development. Case in point, Ariel’s dad, King Triton, and Ursula are siblings. King Triton is also mourning the loss of his wife who he believes died at the hands of humans. And apparently, Ursula disposed of all of her sisters in an attempt at being her dad’s favorite child and future ruler of the sea...

While not to the scale of the epic “Lion King” production, the visuals were dazzling and truly made me feel like I was under the sea. The use of lighting added tremendously to the show. On the ride home, I reflected on the challenge of staging “The Little Mermaid.” I never really thought about how many times scenes shift from underwater to just at the surface to dry land before. Impressive execution.

My favorite part of the show was, of course, the music. Diana Huey nailed her role of Ariel with a strong performance, belting out as she gracefully swam/floated in a harness across the stage. Sebastian, played by Melvin Abston, stole every scene he was in. Don’t sleep on his vocals at the end of “Under the Sea” where he really let loose. Goosebumps.

Ursula, played by Meredith Inglesby, was convincingly evil and adorned by her glowing minions Flotsam and Jetsam. And three words...tap.dancing.seagulls.

Flounder being aged into a teenager with a not so secret crush on Ariel was the most troubling departure from the movie for me. Marco Ramos did a fabulous job in the role, don’t get me wrong. I just felt really sad for Flounder who was constantly reminded that Ariel didn’t love him, teased by Ariel’s sisters and made to do their laundry.

Still, “Little Mermaid” had all the nostalgia you’d expect with a bit more darkness. If you’re a fan of the movie, you won’t want to miss the show running through Sunday at DPAC. There are limited tickets remaining.

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