Just got back from the last preview (opening night is tomorrow). It's a little late, but here goes my impressions of the show. (Note, I've never seen any of the Shrek movies).

The book still does not feel as tight as it should be, with some scenes that still felt a little longish.

The lyrics are not too memorable, but the music was good, though often times, some of the musical motifs seemed like they were cribbed from some other songs from other musicals.

Chris Sieber was the best character (for me at least, but he did seem to get a bigger hand than Sutton at the curtain call). He nails the characterization, and I really like how they handled the whole height issue with the costume, which made for some very funny choreography. I kinda feel bad for the guy though, and wonder how his knees will hold up through the run.

I usually don't like Sutton (I think she's slightly over-rated and was miscast in "Young Frankenstein"), but I really liked her here. The character of Fiona really plays to her strengths, and I thought her singing and dancing was excellent (great Pied Piper tap sequence during her Act 2 opener, "Morning Person", even though, like a lot of the musical sequences, they seemed to not add too much and served as padding for the show).

Chester was good as the Donkey, but I thought he could have played the role much bigger. He didn't seem to inject as much snarky commentary into the show as I thought he might. I know you don't really want to upstage the main character, but it already was done with Farquaad...

Brian was also good as Shrek, but it seems like they need to inject a little bit more into his role. Something seemed missing. Like he wasn't comedic enough to be really laugh out loud funny, but also not gruff enough to play the straight man to the Donkey. The only moment that really made me connect with his character was the Act 1 closer ("Who I'd Be").

Someone mentioned the weird Dragon thing, so I was prepared to go into it with an open mind, but I did find it distracting and odd that there was both the giant Dragon puppet, and Kecia running around in some fierce drag queen outfit around the stage. It made the whole "Donkey Pot Pie" number not really work for me. (That and the weird dancing skeletons that nearly come out of nowhere and have no real reason for being there, unless I missed something).

And with them mentioning John Tartaglia in every single article on the show, I thought he would have a bigger role, but he didn't. Pinocchio was pretty much straight from the movie (well, I assume, from the bits of the movie commercials I remember), and his Magic Mirror character didn't really add a lot either. Actually, a lot of those other Fairy Tale characters seemed to be just stuck into the storyline, because they could be, not really because they actually added anything to the plot. I felt like I was watching a rehashed, and dumbed-down version of "Into The Woods".

OK, onto the dishy stuff. So they are transitioning from the Magic Mirror sequence (with the Get a Wife gameshow), and transitioning to the Fiona tower, and the music is taking a long time. I can see a couple of the stagehands behind the curtains tinkering with something (the tower). Then they finally walk off, and the curtain comes up. It seems to take a while for the tower to rotate into place (the girl playing young Fiona is doing her best to still slowly walk on the tower). They get through the "I know it's Today" number, when the curtain comes down, and the director, Jason Moore, comes onto the stage, and apologizes. He mentions that there is something wrong with the turntable stage, and that he needs to make sure that all three Fionas get off safely (someone yells a second later that they are off safely). He apologizes again and mentions that we're still in previews, and that tomorrow is the official opening night. So all the lights are up in the house, and a good number of us decide to take a bathroom break. It's a good 15 minutes or so before he comes back on stage and says that they are almost ready and the show will start again in 5 minutes.

When the show starts again, Donkey and Shrek walk onto the stage. Donkey says "Man, that was a long journey", and Shrek says "Yeah, it felt like we were walking for 20 minutes."

The rest of the show went off without any more technical difficulties, though when they started again, I noticed that the center turntable had some grates exposed that I didn't notice before then (these grates are used near the end for some smoke effects).

It was an OK show (I liked the sets and costumes the most), and I could see that it would be popular with the family tourist crowd, but it didn't do much for me as a regular theatre patron. Many of the jokes were stale one-liners you can see coming from a mile away. There seemed to be a lot of act one exposition (act two seemed better in my opinion). I don't know if I liked the little theatre reference "in-jokes" or not (the "A Chorus Line" setup to the song "The Line-Up", the little "Gypsy" reference in "Things Are Looking Up In Dulac", and the little gratuitous "Lion King" and "Wicked" references in "Travel Song"). Though I think the audience only really got the "Lion King" and "Wicked" references.

Anyway, here's the song list included in the program. I don't know if they are going to change anything before tomorrow:

Act 1:
- Big Bright Beautiful World
- The Line-Up
- The Line-Up Reprise
- The Goodbye Song
- I Won't Let You Go
- I Know It's Today
- Things Are Looking Up in Duloc
- Travel Song
- Donkey Pot Pie
- This is How a Dream Comes True
- Who I'd Be

Act 2:
- Morning Person
- I Think I Got You Beat (some of Fiona's verses sounded a lot like the melody from "La vie Boheme")
- The Ballad of Farquaad
- Make A Move
- When Words Fail
- Morning Person (Reprise)
- What Happens to Love
- Freak Flag
- More to the Story
- The Wedding
- Finale