If you’re thinking of using the power of the purse to help the theater community get over COVID devastation—and if not, why not?—there won’t be a more entertaining tradeoff for your donated buck than Ratatouille: The Tik Tok Musical. Currently streaming to benefit the Actors Fund for an excruciatingly limited time—72 hours, which began Tik Tok-ticking at 7pm EST on January 1, on a “contribute what you can” basis which by midnight had brought more than a million dollars into Actors Fund coffers—the Pixar fable of Remy, the little rat who dreams of forsaking Paris’ garbage cans for a chef’s toque at a Michelin-star restaurant, is performed with an energy that practically reaches out from your electronic device to grab you by the throat. Which, if you’re a content consumer in the year of Our Lord 2021, had better be your idea of a good time, ‘cause that’s what you get these days.
To be sure, anyone over age 21 may well be unfamiliar with both the one-minute personal video format of the Tik Tok platform, and even the property itself. (2007’s Best Animated Feature award winner has enjoyed a far lower profile than the likes of the Toy Story franchise or The Lion King.) Bringing us out-of-it oldsters up to speed, a recent Time Magazine profile explains the special appeal, to 2007’s moppets, of a self-empowerment fable. Latterly grown into the Tik Tok demographic, they are eager, particularly in this stifling pandemic era, to embrace a celebration of outsiders’ ability to overcome obstacles and achieve the impossible.
Whatever the reasons, some months ago a simple ditty in praise of Remy written, sung, and posted by one Emily Jacobsen went viral once musical director Daniel Mertzlufft laid a full orchestral treatment over it. That inspired other RataTweeters to write and stage their notions of what a Ratatouille musical ought to include, and eventually Slave Play author Jeremy O. Harris and producer Greg Nobile started wrangling idle-for-work Broadway talent to wrap it all together into some sort of event.
And what sort? Essentially it’s a hour-long concert with acted-out segments, punctuated by a dozen songs by a dozen Tik Tok devotees and built, as Remy (Tituss Burgess) points out, “with just the right amount of cheese.” Adapters Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley never write a dialogue scene where Burgess’s narration will suffice, and as a result, those who don’t know the movie may miss key elements, such as the way in which Remy hides within his human kitchen surrogate’s toque to pull the cooking strings.
Just enough crossovers and lead-ins are provided to establish the numbers, whose tunes at first hearing seem of adequate Broadway quality and whose lyrics may even be somewhat better than that. Then again, commercial jingles might sound Tony Award-quality when delivered by this crew, headed by the warmly charismatic Burgess. (His utter reliance on cue cards is a little disconcerting, but hell, it’s a huge role in a show they whipped together quickly, and it’s for charity, so give him a break.)
Andrew Barth Feldman, for my money Broadway’s dearest Evan Hansen, is a dead ringer for Linguine, Remy’s human stand-in, and performs capitally. So do Wayne Brady and Adam Lambert as Remy’s rat family, Kevin Chamberlin as the inspiring chef Gusteau, Mary Testa in Ian Holm’s movie villain role, and Priscilla Lopez as the old lady who chases the rats out of her flat. (She croons a brief Chorus Line hommage to the panicky vermin: “Kiss your friends goodbye…”). I couldn’t make out what Ashley Park was saying in her too-thick French accent as Linguine’s love interest, but André De Shields is an ideal replacement for Peter O’Toole’s silky food critic Anton Ego. De Shields gets the best ditty, linking Remy’s titular side dish to his provincial youth (nicely essayed by Owen Tabaka).
With plenty of time on her hands awaiting the return of Six, its director Lucy Moss manages to integrate the pieces smoothly, supported by a crackerjack tech team. Special mention ought to be made of Mertzlufft’s musical supervision, the orchestral performances of The Broadway Sinfonietta, and the two-person “Dance Ensemble” of Joy Woods and JJ Niemann, who are each split into three through the magic of VFX to deliver Ellenore Scott’s choreography.
Two questions haunt one throughout. Does this Ratatouille have a stage future? And what if anything do Tik Tok and social media generally have to contribute to the art form? Assuming it’s OK with Disney, which it may very well not be, the former is in my opinion a definite yes. Visually and emotionally, the material has a lot more to offer than many another previously adapted animated epic.
The latter question is a much tougher call. Time will tell, I guess. But the spirit of this crowdsourced DIY adventure is a lot closer to such watershed projects as Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop, or the improv experiments of Paul Sills and Mary Zimmerman, than many theater purists are likely to give it credit for. Whatever one thinks of Ratatouille, it would probably be a mistake to dismiss it as a one-off. With new opportunities afforded to creative types traditionally lacking in access, there may be gold in that there clickbait.
Ratatouille: The Tik Tok Musical was streamed beginning January 1, 2021 at 7:00 p.m. EST, and will be available for 72 hours thereafter. Information: todaytix.com
