The Muppets took Manhattan in 1984, movie-wise, but they have never appeared on Broadway, even though that was a long-held ambition of their father, Jim Henson.
I thought Henson’s puppets were going to make it to the Main Stem with the live version of “Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas,” which premiered in Chicago in 2023 and has been knocking on Broadway’s door ever since. But it’s complicated. Those were Henson puppets (working with Paul Williams of “Rainbow Connection” fame) but not Muppets, per se, as the Muppets were sold to Disney in 2004.
So now the familiar, Disney-owned names — Kermit, Fozzie, Miss Piggy, Gonzo — have made their debut not in a work of genuine artistry driven around their long-lived fabulousness, but as audience-pulling sidekicks at the Broadway debut of Rob Lake, a young illusionist from Oklahoma.
Frankly, I’d hoped better for them on Broadway.
The big bummer here is that the Muppet voices clearly are pre-taped in this live experience, even though the rest of Lake’s show is highly interactive. You can discern this by the tell-tale pauses and the result is that even Kermit, that friendliest of amphibians, is stymied from chatting with the kid in the front row or even reacting in real time to their excitement.
For the record, if you doubt the rock-star status of these characters, the enthusiasm of this audience will set you straight.
One can understand the systemic problem here. It is easier to find puppeteers able to do eight shows a week than voice artists capable of evoking these iconic characters in real time. The last thing Disney would want is for some kid to leave the theater saying, “that did not sound like Kermit.” Safer to go with the pre-recording, but, alas, it saps so much of the life out of the show.
The other problem here is that Rob Lake Magic and the Muppets have little discernible to do with each other, even after some effort to splice the two together. Gonzo does manage an illusion as he performs, he says, for “high society” and Kermit kind of assists Lake with one, to the extent a frog can. But they should be the show’s stars, not “special guests,” with about the same level of involvement as a musical act on “Saturday Night Live.”
Lake’s act, which has familiar illusions but is nowhere near as interesting or as dynamic as Jamie Allan’s Off-Broadway magic show “Amaze,” uses the standard magician autobiographical nomenclature. You know, “When I was a boy,” that kind of thing, as Lake tells us his Broadway dreams.
The 80-minute show goes like this. Lake does his very retro act: sawing a woman in half, levitating another of his magician’s assistants, disappearing and reappearing at the back of the theater. All standard Las Vegas stuff, but done perfectly well. Then a drop falls on the stage and there will be a separate appearance by, say, Miss Piggy, in some kind of pre-set scenic tableau.
What you are getting for your top ticket price of $199 is a low-to-mid budget David Copperfield-type magic show with some neat tricks but minus any truly grand illusions, coupled with a protracted Muppet meet-and-greet to get folks in the door.
Fozzie does get off some good one-liners about Broadway: “Just call me Bob Fozzie! Ha-cha!” and “If I know Kermit, he’s probably hanging out in the green room! Ahhh.” But there is no “Rainbow Connection,” no big puppet numbers, no Statler and Waldorf in the boxes, nothing like that. Caveat emptor.
Clearly, Lake’s traditional magic was enough for some to have a good time with family at the weekend matinee I saw, but that is what happens when you invite The Muppets to your magic party.
So Lake might want to mitigate his continued insistence on adult volunteers to invite more live interaction with all those pint-sized Fozzie fans who got their parents to buy them tickets.
Kermit has to stick to what’s on tape, whatever his loving fans shout his way.
“Rob Lake Magic With Special Guests the Muppets” will run until November 16 after 20 previews and four performances. The run was originally set to conclude in mid-January.
