‘Which Way to the Stage?’ chronicles Idina Menzel’s winding journey
The rigors of the road and the pressures of performance are made abundantly clear in “Which Way to the Stage?’’, a new documentary about Idina Menzel that’s streaming on Disney+.
Directed by Anne McCabe, “Which Way to the Stage?’’ follows Menzel on a national tour that culminates with the fulfillment of a lifelong dream: to perform at Madison Square Garden. “It took 47 years to get here,’’ Menzel observes.
Although Menzel is one of the documentary’s executive producers, “Which Way’’ is fairly candid in capturing not just the joy of one of Broadway’s premier belters when she’s onstage (”I always love the spotlight,’’ she admits) but also her anxieties, doubts, and occasional tears when she’s offstage. A work-life balance is hard to sustain when you’re touring, and it’s poignantly clear how much Menzel misses her young son.
The documentary takes us inside rehearsals, recording studios, and dressing rooms as well as onto concert stages. It offers an overview of the struggles Menzel has faced in her life and career, including the baffling decision by her parents to make Thanksgiving Day (!) the moment to tell young Menzel and her sister that they were separating. Small wonder she’s wary about how long good fortune will endure.
“I never celebrate too much,’’ says Menzel, who appeared a year ago in the premiere of “WILD: A Musical Becoming,’’ at Cambridge’s American Repertory Theater. “I’ve had a lot of highs and lows.’’
There’s home movie footage of her singing “Edelweiss’’ at age 9, and then, as a teenager, performing in a high school production of “Bye Bye Birdie.’’ She sang at weddings and bar mitzvahs before landing a breakthrough role as Maureen, a flamboyant performance artist, in the original 1996 Broadway production of “Rent.’’ (Of “Rent’’ creator Jonathan Larson, she says: “Every concert I ever do is because of him.’’)
Yet Menzel experienced some lean years after she left “Rent.” When you’re equally drawn to, and adept at, Broadway, pop, and rock, “They don’t know how to market you,’’ she says.
Her career shifted into high gear when Menzel landed the role of Elphaba in the blockbuster musical “Wicked,’’ earning her a Tony Award in 2004 and furnishing her with much-loved signature songs (”For Good,’’ “Defying Gravity’’) she could later sing in concert. As the voice of Elsa in “Frozen’’ (2013), Menzel sang the ubiquitous “Let It Go.’’
Introducing her performance of “Let It Go” at the 2014 Academy Awards, John Travolta mispronounced her name as “Adele Dazeem.’’ In the documentary, Menzel calls that flub “the best thing that ever happened to me.’’ Apparently when a major movie star gets your name spectacularly wrong in public, it instantly broadens your name recognition.
Perhaps the most charmingly human moment in “Which Way to the Stage?’’ takes place when Menzel arrives in New York, and she blurts out what amounts to one definition of success. “All the girls that were mean to me in high school: See ya!’’