Reviews 2014
Reviews 2014
✭✭✭✭✩
by Derek Genova, directed by Emily Johnston
Solar Stage, Toronto
December 13, 2014-January 4, 2015
“Love Melts an Icy Heart”
When you think of theatre for children in Toronto, Young People’s Theatre comes first to mind. Founded in 1966 it is the oldest and largest professional theatre for young audiences in Canada. Yet, it is not the only theatre for young people in the city. Solar Stage in the Madison Centre in North York is currently celebrating its 20th season of children’s theatre with a playbill of 21 shows from October 2014 through June 2015. Solar Stage aims at a narrower age range than YPT with ages 3 to 10 as its target audience, but this only means it has perfected an approach that it knows will appeal to younger theatregoers. Its latest show, Derek Genova’s adaption of The Snow Queen, based on the 1844 fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, is a perfect example of Solar Stage’s successful approach.
The first thing that is remarkable about Derek Genova’s adaptation is how faithful it is to its source. Kay (Timothy Ng) and Gerda (Emilie O'Brien) are two friends who grow up in adjoining houses in a small town in Hungary. They are devoted to each other and enjoy listening to the stories that Kay’s Grandmother (Amy Swift) tells. One day she tells them the story of a mirror created by a Hobgoblin (Shai Tannyan) that only shows the worst in what it reflects. The mirror was destroyed but its splinters, some no bigger than a grain of sand, still blow about in the air and can stick in a person’s heart and eyes, turning their hearts to ice and their eyes into organs that only see what is negative in everything.
Kay and Gerda go out to play after a recent snowfall and throw snowballs at each other when suddenly Kay experiences a pain in his heart and eyes. Soon he begins acting mean to Gerda and insults her without cause. It is clear to us, but not to Kay, that splinters of the Hobgoblin’s mirror have become lodged in Kay’s heart and eyes. At night the Snow Queen (Shai Tannyan) comes to visit Kay and asks him to come and live with her in her palace at the North Pole. Since Kay no longer likes where he lives or cares about anyone, he agrees and the Snow Queen carries him away. The Snow Queen kisses Kay twice, once so he will not feel the cold, a second time so he will forget his past life. She sets him to the task of trying to spell the word “Love” with pieces of ice.
Gerda now makes it her mission to find Kay and receives help from a River (Amy Swift), a Turtledove (Timothy Ng) and a Reindeer (Amy Swift). The Reindeer says he can take Gerda to the Snow Queen’s palace but Gerda will have to defeat the Queen herself.
This is an unusual adventure story for the 19th century in that it has a female hero and a female villain. In the original all the beings who help Gerda find Kay are also female. A great pity is that so many children will get to know this story first through the 2013 Disney animated feature Frozen that claims to be an adaptation of Andersen’s story. The problem is that Disney has so distorted the story that it has almost nothing in common with Andersen’s tale and navigates laboriously around the huge narrative holes its adaptation has created to make the simple point of the original that love can melt a heart of ice. Disney’s screenwriters have unnecessarily changed the two friends into two sister princesses and have given the powers of the villainous Snow Queen to one of the sisters so that the story is warped from a fairy tale into a story of a superhero who can’t control her powers.
It is therefore extremely refreshing to see that Derek Genova gives a clearer account of the original story that may simplify it and remove its explicit Christian religiosity, but still captures its gist and power. And it does this in only 60 minutes in a show filled with delightful songs by Robert Wilkinson and Sara Wilkinson.
The Wilkinson’s music is influenced by classic rock and pop. The wisest aspect of their musical settings is to give the Snow Queen the most attractive songs to sing, including a lullaby she sings to put the captive Kay to sleep. Just like the Snow Queen’s own beauty, the allure of her songs is a sign of danger since she tries to convince Kay that her palace is now his home.
The strongest singers and actors are Swift and Tannyan. Swift keeps her multiple roles completely distinct and projects both words and song better than the others. Tannyan is unrecognizable as the Hobgoblin, but is supremely aloof and appropriate chilly as the elegant Snow Queen. Ng and O'Brien give enthusiastic performances as Kay and Gerda, though both could adopt clearer diction and better projection.
If there is a flaw in the production it is that the musical accompaniment too often overwhelms the singers’ voices so that the words are lost. Genova and the Wilkinsons frequently use the songs to move the story forward so that hearing the words is key to understanding the story. A delightful aspect of the Solar Stage style is its encouragement of audience interaction. It is a pleasure to see how quickly the children get caught up in the story and how much they want to help the good characters achieve their goals. When Gerda asks where Kay is, the children call out as one the direction he has taken. Indeed, the one song that did not work, something involving Marco Polo, failed because Gerda wondered aloud where Kay had gone before she sang, meaning the children were calling out where he was while Gerda was stuck singing a song that seemed irrelevant to the situation. A fine move is to ask two children on stage to help Kay spell the word “Love” so that he will break the Snow Queen’s spell over him.
It is heartening to see that all children need, even today, is clear and straightforward storytelling presented in a simple but effective manner to catch them up in rapt, silent attention. Solar Stage recognizes that children have not lost their imagination and bring it with them to the show. There is much that writers of shows for children could learn from seeing a show at Solar Stage, the prime lesson being to learn to how to stimulate that precious gift of imagination that children possess.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Illustrations: (from top) Emilie O'Brien as Gerda, Amy Swift as Grandmother and Timothy Ng as Kay; Shai Tannyan as the Snow Queen. ©20014 David Glover.
For tickets, visit www.solarstage.on.ca.
2014-12-14
The Snow Queen