`Blonde' reality is boring!

June 24, 10:38 AMSF Theater ExaminerChad Jones

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Whenever theater gets national exposure, I get a little excited. OK, so the Tony Awards weren’t that thrilling, but the telecast did introduce a national audience to just how good In the Heights looks, and it gave us all a taste of how ferocious Patti LuPone is in "Gypsy."

Truth is, theater gets fairly ignored by mainstream media most of the time, so we’ll take whatever we can get, even if it comes in the form of a dopey reality TV show. First there was “Grease: You’re the One That I Want,” which crowned Max Crumm and Laura Osnes as Danny and Sandy in the still-running Broadway revival of the popular musical. (Rumor is that when the tour of that production comes to San Francisco, it will star the runners up from the TV show.)

Now we have “Legally Blonde the Musical: The Search for Elle Woods,” an MTV reality show that is attempting to find a replacement for Laura Bell Bundy, the spirited, chipmunk-cheeked star of the musical that was born at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre. We’re up to Week 4 in the search, and we’re down to six girls. The new “star” goes into the show on Broadway July 23 (Bundy’s final performance is July 20), so there’s a light at the end of this rather dull reality tunnel.

If you’d like to catch up with my recaps of previous episodes, click away: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3

As for Week 4, we started with eight girls and ended with six. By the end of this recap I’ll tell you who got dumped, so consider this a spoiler alert and stop reading now if you don’t want this less-than-earth-shattering news.

This week it’s all about bitches – not the girls – the dogs. In the musical (as in the Reese Witherspoon movie that inspired it), Elle Woods’ best friend is Bruiser, a little Chihuahua. So our contestants, under the tutelage of dog trainer Bill Berloni, learn how to interact with their four-legged co-stars. The best that can be said for this segment is this: at least the dogs are cute.

The winner of the dog “challenge” (seriously, the language of reality TV is nonsensical) is Autumn, who with pal Celina, is awarded quality time with Richard H. Blake, who plays Elle’s boyfriend, Warner, in the musical. This is the exact same pattern as all the previous episodes, and it’s BOOOOring.

Then comes the audition: the girls perform the number “Serious” opposite Blake. Rhiannon (who is charming when she isn’t slack-jawed), Lauren and Emma kick some serious butt. The episode’s only real drama came from Emma’s diagnosis of bronchitis. She proved what a trouper is as she performed her best-ever audition while sick as a dog. Now there’s some reality that has something to do with actual theater reality.

After last week’s snark fest, Cassie S. (pictured above, photo courtesy of MTV) was cruising for a bruising. After getting called out by her roommates for  throwing them under the bus in front of the judges, poor little whiny Cassie admitted she doesn’t “do” girls. She doesn’t have girlfriends and doesn’t know how to talk to them. Poor thing. [SPOILER ALERT #2] She so deserved to be kicked off – not just because she’s a brat but because she would have been a terrible Elle Woods.

The surprise of the episode is that they ousted two girls instead of one, which meant San Francisco native Celina – much too alt-sexy to be Elle Woods – was booted as well.

The preview for next week’s episode looks juicy and tear filled. Check out music coach Seth Rudetsky’s video blog – it’s a hoot.