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Reproduced by permission: Washington Post
Sweet Imagination
By Nicole Arthur
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 10, 2004; Page WE59
CAN YOU LIVE without the river of chocolate?
Tim McDonald hopes so. Audiences at "Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka," a new musical at the Kennedy Center Theater Lab, are expected to supply their own. As New York-based playwright McDonald tells it, the musical's collaborators took the lyrics of "Pure Imagination," a song from the 1971 film adaptation of Dahl's tale, to heart. Specifically, its opening line, "Come with me and you'll be in a world of pure imagination."
"When you enter the theater, there's nothing on the stage, and by the time the first number is over, there's a set in front of you," McDonald says. "We're saying, 'We're going to build this world, but we need you to help us.' And that's the unspoken leap of faith that so far the audiences I've seen have all taken with us. They have to lend their energy and their imagination to make it work -- we're not going to give it all to them."
And they don't. You won't find the elaborate candyscape that provides the film's centerpiece re-created on stage. Indeed, one of the show's chief pleasures is in trying to anticipate what it will make of the many staging challenges the story presents. Simple solutions take the day: Charlie Bucket flies across the stage atop a wheeled ladder, the shrunken Mike Teavee is represented by a Ken doll, and Violet Beauregarde dons a blueberry suit that resembles an especially unflattering down parka. And for all those disappearances up tubes and down chutes? A wide-mouthed trash can does nicely. This do-it-yourself quality reverberates through the production, whose seven actors also operate puppets, shift scenery and wield the handheld flashlights that take the place of spotlights.
"If we hide the magic, then you're not using your imagination as much," McDonald says.
As it happens, McDonald is something of an expert at doing a lot with a little. He runs the Broadway Junior Collection, an organization that adapts and condenses American musicals so they can be performed by schoolchildren -- think "Annie Junior" and "Godspell Junior." Broadway Junior has also adapted animated Disney films, such as "Cinderella" and "Aladdin" for young performers. McDonald says every production starts with the same questions. "You always ask, 'How do you do this on stage with kids? On budgets that are the equivalent of what a Broadway show would spend on the lead actor's shoes?' "
McDonald says he had long been interested in a musical version of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." But the project was complicated by the fact that the new musical would necessarily combine Dahl's source material and the film score by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. "It's an unusual thing because you have a score by Leslie Bricusse and he controls those rights, and you have the Roald Dahl estate, which controls the underlying book," McDonald says. "So we all came together and created what is 'Willy Wonka.' " Having secured the consent of Dahl's estate, McDonald and Bricusse collaborated on the new musical's book, while Bricusse wrote the lyrics and the music for several additional songs. Ultimately, the collaborators produced two versions of their "Willy Wonka" -- a Broadway Junior version for young performers and, at the behest of the Kennedy Center, a second version with adult actors for young audiences. "One grew out of the other," McDonald says.
Though the material is the same, the versions had very different constraints. "If Mrs. Johnson's fifth-grade class is going to produce 'Willy Wonka,' the cast could be 150, and you can have a billion Oompa Loompas and all these other resources," McDonald says. "So you're generally writing for an ever-expandable and scalable show. It's the exact opposite when you're doing theater for young audiences -- we have seven actors, who need to perform, by the time we're done, probably 30 or 35 roles." In this production, each actor averages four parts -- though leading man Stephen Schmidt takes on a whopping six. "If one actor's playing three or four parts, you want to make sure the audience understands that," McDonald says. "Which they do, of course, because they're kids -- they use their imagination all day, it's not until we get older that we just tend to turn that off."
Some of those multiple roles are flesh-and-blood, others papier-mache. The Oompa Loompas, for example, are part rolling office chair, part brightly colored puppet; seated actors move the puppets with their legs, at one point forming a stripe-socked chorus line. "The puppets were a natural idea," McDonald says. "Knowing that we had seven actors, and knowing that we wanted to make the show bigger than what seven actors could do, puppets were a natural thing, especially when you think about the Oompa Loompas." Charlie's bedridden grandparents, Grandpa Joe, Grandma Josephine, Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina, are operated by actors who stand in full view behind the headboard. "For the grandparents, because it's cross-generational, that seemed natural also. It's very believable, and certainly more engaging than putting an actor in old-age makeup," McDonald says. "The other thing is that the theme of the show, the foundation, is the concept of imagination. And when you take an inanimate object and you animate it, everybody has to take a leap of faith."
McDonald says that combining material from such dissimilar sources -- Dahl's book is almost macabre whereas the film version is relentlessly perky -- was tricky. "We really tried to use the book and use Roald Dahl's imagination as our touchstone -- versus the film, which was someone else's interpretation," he says. "Our challenge was to create a live theatrical musical event that satisfied your expectations of the book and the film -- but hopefully gave you another experience also." Appropriately, he chooses a gustatory metaphor in describing his hopes for the production. "That's what we were going for -- that, at the end, you didn't feel disappointed because you missed something, you felt satiated, and perhaps even wanting a little bit more."
"ROALD DAHL'S WILLY WONKA" -- Through Dec. 26 at the Kennedy Center Theater Lab. Friday at 7, Saturday at 11 and 1, Sunday at 1. (Additional performances Dec. 22 at 6 and Dec. 23 at 1 and 3; no performances Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.) $14. 202-467-4600.
All photos from the Kennedy Center production of Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka
Photos by Carol Pratt
The cast:
Meghan Touey*, Monique L. Midgette*, Diego Prieto*, Stephen F. Schmidt*, Jeffrey Scott Bailey*, Flordelino Lagundino and Toni Rae Brotons*
*member of actors equity
Adapting Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka for the stage has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
Although it has been quite an adventure and like many adventures, this one begins with a small boy. O.k. perhaps not a small boy...
You see by the time little Timmy reached the third grade he didn't like to read. Not a whit, not a bit, he would not could not on a boat, he could not would not learn by route, little Timmy didn't like to read.
Timmy's sworn enemy in this adventure was the dastardly clever Mrs. Spencer, his third grade teacher. With piles of honey colored hair, aqua netted to beehive perfection and cat eye glasses complete with sparkling diamonds, Mrs. Spencer was smart. VERY smart.
She approached little Timmy when he was at his weakest and most vulnerable, right after lunch.
"Here, take this book home and read it...I think you'll like it" she said, diamonds flashing from her cat eye glasses.
"But I don't like to read" mumbled little Timmy, taking the last scoop of banana pudding from the little can with the oh-so-sharp edges.
"I'll bet you can't even read the first page..." Mrs. Spencer challenged.
Timmy balked. What's this, a challenge? "I'll have you know, I can read" he sputtered. "I just don't LIKE to read."
"Sure kid whatever you say, but my money's on the fact that YOU can't read. Like it or not. In fact, I dare you to read just the FIRST PAGE of this book."
Well every kid in the class was now staring at me--I mean little Timmy. If little Timmy didn't accept the challenge, everyone would think little Timmy couldn't read and that just wasn't true. Little Timmy COULD read. He just didn't LIKE to read.
"Fine" said little Timmy "I'll read the first page of your silly book, but not one word more!"
That night little Timmy waited as long as possible before pulling out the book. He never told his parents about Mrs. Spencer's challenge, that way he could back out if another plan came to his active little mind.
Finally dressed for bed in striped PJs, teeth washed, ears cleaned, he pulled out the book. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, eh" he mumbled reading the title of the book. "Sounds interesting." And little Timmy read the first page of that book: "THESE TWO VERY OLD PEOPLE are the father and mother of Mr. Bucket..."
"Who's Mr. Bucket?" mused little Timmy, turning the page.
"And these two very old people are the father and mother of Mrs. Bucket..." little Timmy kept reading, and reading and turning page after page following the adventure of Charlie Bucket and Mr. Wonka's magical chocolate factory.
Little Timmy finished that book that very same night reading every word, sounding the harder words out loud! And the next morning at school when Mrs. Spencer asked little Timmy if he'd met her challenge he said he did better, "I read the whole book!"
Mrs. Spencer doubted him--and said so in front of the entire class. That lead to her downfall, for little Timmy began to act out the story of CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY for the entire class! From MEMORY! Playing all the parts--even the GIRL PARTS!
By the end of his dramatic reading, the class applauded and there was a fight over who would read the book next resulting in a tear on the lower right side cover of the book. And if you don't believe me, just go to the library at Anderson Elementary and check out CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. Well, there isn't really a library, the school was mainly portable classrooms on wheels, BUT in the hallway of the main building there were several shelves of books, carefully maintained by the smartest woman in the neighborhood, Ethel Gill--but that's another story.
Before the struggle over the book got too out of control, the bell rang, signaling the first recess of the day. All the kids ran outside leaving little Timmy and Mrs. Spencer alone in the classroom.
Mrs. Spencer click, clicked up to little Timmy's desk. "I'm very proud of you" she said. "You can read."
"I could always read" replied little Timmy. "But now I LIKE reading."
Mrs. Spencer gave little Timmy a hug. She smelled of aqua net mixed with the perfume Charlie, just like his mom. It was a good smell.
"Do you have more books?" He said with excitment.
"Indeed, I do--try this one!" And with a splat JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH landed on little Timmy's desk.
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