When the musical version of Legally Blonde first opened in 2007, I remember reading more than one comment from (straight) men I knew in theater bemoaning that it was just something dumb and fluffy, meant to appeal to teenage girls. (Because of course we all know that teenage boys are the real arbiters of important culture and meaningful narratives.) Leaving aside the fact that there’s nothing wrong with appealing to teenage girls—and that I know plenty of nonteenagers and nonwomen who enjoyed the adventures of Elle Woods—one could make a case that Legally Blonde (which started out as a hit 2001 film starring Reese Witherspoon) helped pave the way for 2023’s Barbie as a celebration of pink sisterhood.

Truthfully, Elle has more to learn than Margot Robbie’s doll, who lives a life mostly centered on her fellow Barbie friends, where the Kens are ancillary to the action. By contrast, Elle’s motivation for getting into Harvard Law is to win back her preppie boyfriend, Warner, who thinks that a fashion merchandising major and Malibu blonde isn’t the right accessory for his goal of becoming a U.S. senator. Heather Hach’s book for the musical, now in a sprightly (and short) revival at Music Theater Works under Mandy Modic’s direction, makes just enough changes to enliven the story without losing its essential appeal (something that the musical version of The Devil Wears Prada didn’t quite grasp, at least in its Chicago incarnation of two years ago).

Legally Blonde
Through 12/29: Thu 2 PM, Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2 and 7:30 PM, Sun 2 PM; North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie, 847-920-5360, musictheaterworks.com, $19.50–$106

For one thing, Emmett, the young lawyer who champions Elle, comes from a working-class background. (We never learned that much about Emmett in the film.) So does Elle’s best friend in Cambridge, stylist and manicurist Paulette. Whatever else one might say about Elle, she’s not really a snob about class, unlike Warner and his new fiancee, Vivienne Kensington. Yet in the musical (as opposed to the film), Vivienne stands up for Elle at a couple of crucial moments. (I’m not as convinced that the “Greek chorus” of Elle’s sorority sisters, who appear as visions at various points to encourage her, works as well. The device feels a tad wearying in its whimsy.)

I admit part of what’s coloring my perceptions of this musical now, as opposed to when I saw it at Paramount in Aurora in 2018 (a production I also enjoyed) is that the notion of women having imposter syndrome in the age of Trump is thoroughly ridiculous and frankly enraging. So naturally—though I probably couldn’t tell you the difference between Louboutins and Blahniks if you held a gun to my head—I found myself cheering for Elle to figure out that being really good at hard things, while staying true to your essential values of kindness and honesty, is worth the struggle. (Even if recent political events are really making it difficult to hang onto that belief structure.)

Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin’s catchy pop score (music director Linda Madonia conducts the 13-piece live orchestra) plays well in the larger theater at the North Shore Center, from the opening number with Kayla Shipman’s peppy Elle and her fellow Delta Nus, “Omigod You Guys,” to sharklike Professor Callahan’s “Blood in the Water,” in which Korey White’s fearsome legal god provides justification for the worst practices of the profession. (Listen, call this show fluffy all you want, but any song that name-checks Thomas Hobbes has a lot more going on than eye candy.)

Mollyanne Nunn’s choreography works the wider stage to great effect, particularly in “Whipped Into Shape,” in which workout guru Brooke Wyndham (Amanda Handegan), who is being defended by Callahan and a crew of interns including Elle on charges of murdering her husband, leads her fellow inmates in a high-intensity series of moves with more than a hint of Chicagoʼs “Cell Block Tango.” Khaki Pixley as Paulette and Isaiah Engram as her love interest, the beefcake UPS guy, make a ridiculous Riverdance interlude utterly charming. (Yes, the show also includes a number called “Bend and Snap”—it would be adaptation malpractice not to!) And canine actors Kandi and Nosi as Bruiser and Rufus, respectively, deliver all the “awwww!” cuteness you could want.

But ultimately the show depends upon us believing in Elle’s transformation, and Shipman, who was a touching Audrey this past fall in Music Theater Works’s Little Shop of Horrors, delivers with winsome wit and a big heart. Her sorority girl learns some big lessons, but Legally Blonde shows that she has some important things to teach others, too.