Photo by Paul Ruffolo
Children are more resilient than adults give them credit for. That seems to be the overall flavor of James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl’s well-known children’s book. The book has been turned into a musical which ripens onstage in a First Stage production.
Young James, the story’s hero, is pitted against his two horrid aunts who’ve been given the task of raising him after the boy’s parents unexpectedly are eaten by a rhinoceros. James wonders how he is going to be freed from them. In this fantastical journey, a peach on the aunts’ tree grows to enormous proportions. Eventually, it takes James on a transatlantic crossing to America.
The magic potion that James accidentally spills nears the peach tree has the same effect on some nearby bugs. The now-enormous bugs befriend James, showing him that sometimes a family can consist of a group of close friends who care about each other.
Luke Brotherhood was James in the performance seen by this reviewer. He underplayed his role nicely, allowing even more contrast between James and the wildly dressed, outrageous-acting aunts. As in Dahl’s story, the aunts are the spindly Spiker (Amber Nicole Dilger) and overweight Sponge (Jenny Wanasek). The aunts have been given a much larger role here than in the book.
Timothy Allen McDonald wrote the musical with Justin Paul and Benj Pasek. Matt Daniels, who has performed in many First Stage productions, takes the director’s role here. First Stage has a long and distinguished history of presenting musicals. Putting a giant peach onstage is a lot more difficult than planting it in one’s imagination. Through Jason Fassl’s skilled lighting design, the peach first appears as a glowing light that hangs above a three-dimensional peach tree in the aunts’ front yard. As the light grows, it eventually becomes a large piece of backlit scenery. The peach initially serves as a backdrop for some delightful shadow puppetry. Some of the scarier scenes in the book are presented this way. The puppet show also gives a clever nod to one of Dahl’s other popular books, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
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One would have liked to see more children and less music in this show. James is basically the only kid that the audience sees (although a few more children participate in staging some of the technical effects and sing and dance in a couple of production numbers). The music is so dominant that the actors often barely utter a few lines before the show launches into another song. From time to time, a narrator (Andrew Varela) appears onstage to shore up the plot. It is an awkward device.
However, all ends well, as James and the bugs—which also include a dapper grasshopper (Doug Clemens) and sarcastic centipede (Rick Pendzich)—eventually find freedom and happiness in New York City. The show is geared for children age 6 and older.
Through Nov. 15 at the Todd Wehr Theater in the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, 929 N. Water St. For tickets, call 414-267-2961 or visit firststage.org.
