We’re lucky that this year brought several excellent options for family entertainment: “A Christmas Story, The Musical,” “The Radio City Christmas Spectacular” and “Elf — The Musical” spring to mind. So unless your kids are obsessed with the old cartoon version, there’s little reason to rush to “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical.”
Granted, the show faces an uphill battle at the cavernous Theater at Madison Square Garden. With a capacity of 5,600, the venue is actually smaller than Radio City, but it lacks its corporate cousin’s intimate feel and terrific acoustics. This is one hurdle the touring — read: underfed — production of “The Grinch” doesn’t need.
The musical, which opened on Broadway in 2006, centers on one of the best villains in modern pop culture: the Grinch (Jeff McCarthy), a green, shaggy creature who’s dead set on ruining Christmas for the happy, sappy Whos. You can’t really blame him, if only because here the male Whos sport saggy britches that would send anybody, let alone a Grinch, into a maniacal tailspin.
To stretch the beloved 1966 special’s 26 minutes into this show’s 80, Timothy Mason (who also wrote the book) and Mel Marvin came up with a slew of fine but unremarkable new songs. They all pale compared to the classic “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” a delicious ode to “the king of sinful sots.”
Here, though, he’s not quite mean enough. Broadway vet McCarthy (“Urinetown,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Chicago”) works tirelessly, but his Grinch comes across as just another sassy crank with showbiz dreams — a familiar pattern for musical baddies, if you remember the top-hatted monster in “Young Frankenstein” and the Green Goblin tickling the ivories in “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.”
When the youngest Who, Cindy-Lou (Tori Feinstein or Abigail Shapiro, depending on the performance), launches into a song, the Grinch mockingly interjects, “Ooh, it’s a ballad!”
Perhaps, once he’s done terrorizing the Whos, he should become a critic.