Wolves in the Walls at the New Victory Theater

[ellen_datlow]

Just came back from the National Theatre of Scotland's musical production of Neil Gaiman's children's book Wolves in the Walls conceived of (partly) and designed by Julian Crouch, who created the amazing Shock-Headed Peter. Rick Bowes and I went and who should we meet outside? Alisa Kwitney, Claudia Gonson (they didn't know each other until I introduced them), and then Neil, his film agent, Merrilee Heifetz (his and my agent) and her family...The musical doesn't open officially till the 14th and runs for a week but these are my impressions.

The production looks gorgeous, the wolves are wonderfully wrought. The mother, an actress named Anita Vettesse was brilliant--great voice, charismatic and perfect in the role. The brother played by Paul James Corrigan was also terrific. They each had excellent showstoppers to perform. The father played by George Drennan was good, but he didn't have enough to do and no great showstopper. Unfortunately, the girl Lucy, played by Helen Mallon, was unintelligible. Her Scot accent was so strong that we could only understand about one of every ten words. And she tried too hard to play a kid. I'm afraid that I don't see how her performance can be improved in the short time remaining --but she was absolutely the wrong person to have play for an American audience. The sound all around was not great--very muddy-- and difficult to understand any of the lyrics when all four of the main characters sang together.

The kids in the audience were entranced, even though there were some very scary bits. Ysabeau Wilce's "pig" (or a "pig" impersonator) played a crucial role.

So recommended with the above caveats.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

The wolves deserve their own show. Or at least a video that could go up on YouTube.

Rick Bowes

[maryrobinette.livejournal.com]

I am seriously looking forward to this.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

Excellent! I'm going next week!

[(Anonymous)]

I could understand Lucy perfectly well. Bear in mind that the its a National Theatre of Scotland production and they chose a Scottish lead because it's a Scottish production. She's exactly the right person to play for an American audience.

[deliasherman.livejournal.com]

I just saw it last night, along with a bunch of friends, and liked it very much. Oddly enough, I found Lucy utterly comprehensible and the brother not so much--mostly because he was talking way too fast. The body language was clear, though. The kids in the audience laughed and giggled a lot, so clearly something was getting through.

The wolves were prime. Also Pig Puppet. And it wasn't nearly sold out. So it's not perfect--go anyway. Good children's theatrical fantasy is not thick on the ground.