A Review of "Ratatouille the TikTok Musical"

By: Liv Canova

from: mickeyblog.com

A preface:

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new." 

- from Ego's Monologue in Ratatouille (written by Brad Bird)

 If you haven’t seen/heard of Ratatouille the TikTok Musical by now, boy are you missing out. 

I was a witness to it’s conception, creation, and final product, as many Gen Z were, and I have to say that it was quite the experience. 

The show premiered on TodayTix on January 1 at 7:00 pm and was only available for 72 hours, but an encore performance was hosted by TikTok on January 10 just for that night. 

Leading up to its debut, I had no idea what to expect. I knew the cast and I knew the songs, but that’s about it, and I was blown away at the final product. 

Let me start off with my critiques first just to get them out of the way. 

- Makeup. I think all the actors playing rats should have had similar rat makeup. It was a bit jarring to see Wayne Brady’s rat face and then see Tituss Burgess without any of the makeup. I think it could’ve just pulled everything together a little bit better. 

- Emile's Casting. As much as I love Adam Lambert and am in awe of his talent, I don’t think he was right for the role of Emile. Emile is a character who could just pull an eggo waffle out of his sweatshirt and start eating it and you wouldn’t be surprised, and I just don’t see Adam Lambert doing that.

Now to my praises, because this experience was mostly filled with good

- The casting (aside from what I mentioned in critiques). I think the casting really made this project come alive. I absolutely loved Kevin Chamberlin as Gusteau. I thought he was perfect casting and I’ve loved his voice since I heard his performance of Fester for the Addams Family musical. Additionally, he co-wrote the song that he performed! I also loved Andrew Barth Feldman. He is amazing already, but i thought he was perfectly cast as Linguine. If you closed your eyes and listened to him acting out those scenes, I guarantee that you would not be able to tell the difference between him and the original voice actor. Also Andre De Shields! Although he only got a few minutes of time on screen, he really brought the character of Ego to life. A few of my other standouts were Ashley Park as Colette and Tituss Burgess as Remy. 

- The songs!!! They were already crowdsourced before the musical, so that gave them an advantage, but they are all incredibly written. My personal favorite is “Trash is Our Treasure” (written by Gabbi Bolt) and I think Wayne Brady did a great job performing it. 

- Tituss Burgess’s backgrounds. I liked that he had a green screen behind him so that the scenery could change. The backgrounds they chose were subtle, but did a good enough job that my mom (who has never seen the original ratatouille) was able to follow the story (with help from Tituss Burgess's narration).

- Broadway show references. As someone who loves Broadway, the references to some famous shows were not lost on me. The shows referenced included: The Producers, Spamalot, A Chorus line, Rent, and Cats.

-The ensemble dances. With cast members like JJ Neiman and Joy Woods (both Broadway and off-Broadway performers), you know these dances had to be good. I liked how they had mainly a Broadway feel, but sometimes brought in some TikTok moves to show this project’s roots.

All in all, Ratatouille the TikTok Musical helped raise 1.5 million dollars for the Actors Fund and sold over 200,000 tickets in over 138 countries. If you missed the show, you can still find it on Youtube.