See it: 645pm, Monday, December 8 10am, Tuesday, December 9 (show only) 1045am, Thursday, December 11 1045am, Friday, December 12 1045, Saturday, December 13 1045am, Sunday, December 14 10am, Tuesday, December 16 (show only) 1045am, Thursday, December 18 1045am, Friday, December 19 1045am, Saturday, December 20 1045am, Sunday, December 21 1045am, Friday, December 26 1045am, Saturday, December 27
Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse, Rock Island, Illinois 309-786-7733 www.circa21.com
Tickets $15-$17 includes a kids-brunch buffet ($10 for show-only performances)
I knew that the version of SNOW WHITE that is currently running in rep with A WONDERFUL LIFE at Circa ‘21would be the same one used a few years back, so I was prepared to have fun as I arrived to review a performance on December 7.
And I was not at all disappointed.
A comedic treat by Marc Robin, this sometimes snarky and self-referential show is a bit subversive, and it offers more laughs for adults than it does for children. Though judging from the crowd of kids at the show, they liked it anyway – and I suspect many of them had nearly as much fun as I did.
In case any audience member needs to be reminded, the Walt Disney Company has a number of copyrights related to names and terms from a number of fairy tales – and we are reminded frequently (and often hilariously) of this fact. The resulting show, which is different enough that Robin and Circa need not fear a lawsuit on any grounds, has something of a mind of its own.
Maybe it’s the character of Woody, the daffy castle woodsman, and Manfred, the fey and sprightly butler, whose exposition-laden opening duet has a cheeky, "well, it is, after all, a musical" attitude. Or perhaps the unconventional array of dwarves, including a therapist named Freud and a magician named Merlin, are what make this show so different. All in all, this is not your childhood’s SNOW WHITE, and it is a fun little show that might be more entertaining to adults than to the kids they take along.
The seven dwarves aren’t just named after eight historical or fictional characters, they are these people – sort of, anyway. (And the "eight" in the previous sentence is not a typo: one dwarf seems unsure whether he is Martin Luther or Martin Luther King.) In addition to Merlin, Freud and Martin, their "little cottage" also houses Columbus the explorer, Confucius the sage, Scrooge the Celtic grouch, and Caruso, the mustachioed and self-adoring opera-singer-slash-ladies-man. Many of their lines, especially those of Caruso and Freud, are much more hilarious to those of us who get all those jokes – but all of the dwarves offer plenty of laughs for the grownups in the crowd.
Woody (played by Bret Churchill, who also plays Merlin) and his overt clumsiness proved to be the biggest hit with the children at the performance I saw. Churchill gives Woody the kind of slack-limbed elasticity that makes it possible for him to tumble and flop all over the stage, and his cheery acceptance of how often he falls is almost as endearing as he is. Best of all is his quaking at the thought of being turned into another, more contemporary fictional character. Churchill’s Merlin is a hapless magician, too, and this role – or at least the group of actors who react to him – earns major laughs every time he even mentions trying a spell.
John Watkins, as Scrooge, also earned big laughs from the young set. His irascible response to repeated overtures – and his eventual capitulation to the unfailingly cheerful Snow White (Ashley Catherine Schmitt) earns an enthusiastic response. No doubt Watkins ability to deliver all his lines clearly, even with his character’s thick accent.
Janos Horvath makes a cute Manfred, and he is also fun as the inquisitive Freud. Andrea Moore does nice work as Confucius, Schmitt plays the title role with a wide-eyed and overt ingenue-ity that is perfectly pitched, and Adam Michael Lewis plays a big, blustery Columbus with lots of puffery. Laura Brigham (and her lovely voice) are deliciously vain, enlivening the role of Queen Narcissus with an appropriate level of evil, and Mark Lingenfelter is both skilled and adorable as her Magic Mirror – and he taps and sasses his way through a crowd-pleasing role. As the crusading, justice- and freedom-seeking Martin, Chad S. Parsons is genial and sweet, and Andrew J. Smith is funny as (the anything but) Charming.
Best of all this time around is Tristan Layne Tapscott (whose name I’m putting in my spellchecker, since I seem to be writing about him all the time), whose swoon-y incarnation of opera heartthrob Caruso is entertainingly larger-than-life. Tapscott’s Caruso is heavily accented (but not offensively stereotypical) and very sure of himself, without ever crossing over into jerk-dom, and the resulting performance is as likable as it is enjoyable.
Robin’s book and lyrics are clever and sharp, and director-choreographer Bill Fabris has put together a production worthy of the material. It’s a great show for adults to take kids to, without risking their own slumber-related accidents, and I had great fun there.
Highly recommended for all ages – at least those about five and over – this SNOW WHITE is simply too good to miss. Make sure you don’t.
Maybe it’s the character of Woody, the daffy castle woodsman, and Manfred, the fey and sprightly butler, whose exposition-laden opening duet has a cheeky, "well, it is, after all, a musical" attitude. Or perhaps the unconventional array of dwarves, including a therapist named Freud and a magician named Merlin, are what make this show so different. All in all, this is not your childhood’s SNOW WHITE, and it is a fun little show that might be more entertaining to adults than to the kids they take along.
