THEATRE REVIEW

OCTOBER 2024 | Volume 244

 

First, a confession. I’ve never read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was never read to me and I never read it to my kids or my grandkids. So I went into this musical version of Roald Dahl’s children’s classic in almost total ignorance.

That turns out not to have been such a good thing. The musical’s exposition takes place largely through song. But the lyrics aren’t clear enough to explain why Willy Wonka has to be so mysterious about his chocolate factory or why he runs his candy store in disguise. Nor did I understand why he’s so nasty to Charlie Bucket and so sadistic to the other kids who get the Golden Tickets that allow them to tour the factory with Willy.

In fact, the first act is a disaster. The songs are weak and the introductions of the Golden Ticket winners are repetitious and formulaic. But it’s saved by Daniel Curalli’sremarkably slick, nasty, charismatic Willy Wonka.

Here’s more good news: Act Two is terrific. The up-tempo songs drive the exciting, if surprisingly cartoon-violent, action. Brian Ball’s virtual factory room sets are magnificent. And the other characters come alive under Mark Carter’s direction.

Charlie Bucket (played on alternate nights by Grayson Besworth and Quinlan McDonald) and his Grandpa Joe (Sanders Whiting) are less interesting than the other, quirkier Golden Ticket kids and their elders. Spoiled brat Veruca Salt (Julianne Biegler) steals every scene she’s in. This Verucais a Russian ballerina, her performance a tour de force.Her commissar father (Dimitrios Stephanoy) does great work trying to keep up with her.

The subject of fat jokes, Augustus Gloop (Joshua Severyn) and his mother (Cathy Wilmot) are played broadly as Bavarian peasants. Gum-chewing Violet Beauregarde (Ashley Nardi) and her father (Ryan Nuñez) are wannabe social media influencers. Mike Teavee (Eric Gibson), addicted to his screens, is petted and spoiled by his elegant 1950s-era mom (Kyrst Hogan).

Paula Higgins does nice work as Charlie’s sweet mother, trying hard to hold her poor family together, while the woman who peddles rotten vegetables to Charlie (Lauren Ridder?) has all the funniest lines that don’t belong to Willy.

This is a big show for an independent company—a cast of 20 singers and dancers with the chorus playing the Oompa Loompas, giant squirrels and more. And in another, weirder tour de force, the eight-piece band, led by music director Jeremy Hoffman, plays from a room in the lobby, connected to the onstage action by laptops.

The happy ending seems pulled out of a hat as Willy Wonka suddenly becomes Mr. Nice Guy. But maybe it all makes more sense to kids.

 

 

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