der B - Different characters than I Am My Own Wife, and Doug Wright writes for character. Wright's most important (IMHO) contribution to Little Mermaid is his gift for transition between book and song, exhibited also in Grey Gardens.
Here's what i had written on All that Chat:
"I also liked it quite a lot, and found it the most consistently enjoyable of the six Broadway Disney shows. (Yes, even more than Lion King, which had those long lapses in the storytelling, where LittIe Mermaid never did, for me, anyway.) I saw it shortly after the strike ended, and then I thought there was too much dancing and ensemble stuff for my taste in Act I, but I forgave that since the placement of the first act curtain probably dictated the length of the act, and the kids around me were rapt during those numbers. I admit a BMI Workshop inclination and a tendency to like Disney (and that my other half has worked for Disney in the past), but I must repeat that I found the quartet "If Only" to be perhaps among the most moving experiences I'd had at a Broadway show in a while, tying up the emotional underpinnings of the show, and shockingly (for me) even surpassing the emotional highs in Doug Wright's own Grey Gardens. I take issue with the comments about Doug Wright's book, as IMHO Wright sets up and leads into numbers with so much grace and beauty, and that might have accounted for so many of the songs landing so well with me, even on first hearing."
