THEATER REVIEW
“The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”
Grade: B
11 a.m. Fridays-Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays. Through Aug. 3 (no performances July 4-6). $10-$15. Serenbe Playhouse. Performed at the Animal Village at the Inn at Serenbe, 10950 Hutcheson Ferry Road, Chattahoochee Hills. 770-463-1110, www.serenbeplayhouse.com.
Bottom line: A classic returns to its corny roots.
The Good Witch of the North smacks gum and talks in a Jersey accent. The Good Witch of the South speaks in a Coca-Cola-sweet Southern drawl and resembles a certain high-strung hoop-skirted belle from Tara.
Toto, I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore.
Leave it to Serenbe Playhouse to transport the Emerald City of L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” to the emerald city of Serenbe, the verdant south Atlanta community it calls home.
At Serenbe Playhouse, bringing classics of literature to the natural environment is a function of both necessity and inspiration. Because the theater has no brick-and-mortar space, artistic director Brian Clowdus, who founded the company four years ago, crafts whimsical stories from whatever lies at his fingertips.
For playwright Rachel Teagle’s new family-friendly adaptation, the playhouse partners with the Center for Puppetry Arts to devise puppets that look as if they were plucked from the cornfields and gourd patches of this eco-friendly ’hood.
Thus, the Scarecrow is stuffed with pine straw that appears to have fallen from the canopy of trees that shades the outdoor stage. And Clowdus frames the Ozian action between two red velvet curtains hung on either end of a pathway that cuts through a village of farm animals. All the audience has to do is don the green sunglasses they receive with their program and follow the Yellow Brick Road.
Don’t expect Dorothy to croon “Over the Rainbow,” however.
Teagle works from the original source, Baum’s 1900 novel, not the 1939 film starring Judy Garland. And the production has a gay good time working in kitschy colloquialisms and returning to the essence of the characters’ quest for courage, brains, heart and home.
Toward that end, Clowdus assembles a stellar ensemble of young performers and garbs them in Jamie Bullins’ clever costumes.
Skylar Nicholson, the 15-year-old Atlanta actress whose Alice tripped through the Serenbe looking glass two seasons ago, is a bespectacled and rather languid Dorothy who spins an imaginative world from the commonplace. Nicholson is not only preternaturally talented, but also comes with her very own Toto. (Dorothy’s dog is portrayed by the actress’ real-life pet Yorkie Emmy. Such is their rapport that the pint-size pooch doesn’t seem to mind being tugged from one end of the Yellow Brick Road to the other.)
As for the rest of the human players, Lauren Chamblin is quite comical as the cowardly Lion. Alex Towers portrays the Tin Man as a wonderfully tender gentle giant. (Note how his tin costume includes a rusty Kansas license plate and a tomato can.) And I can’t say enough good things about Will Skelton’s perpetually dazed and confused Scarecrow. (He’s hilarious.)
Among the outsize supernaturals, Allie Southwood makes for a cruel and menacing Wicked Witch. Brittany Ellis imbues the kinder witches with regionally appropriate accents and attitudes. And Robert Lee Hindsman, who puppeteers along with Ellis and Southwood, makes the King of the Winged Monkeys sound like a hairy mechanic from the Bronx.
Though the sound system sounded a little crunchy the morning I caught the production, this “Wonderful Wizard of Oz” is mostly a journey of heel-clicking foolishness and fun. The weekend offering has been so popular that it recently added Sunday matinees. After seeing it, you’ll understand why. In the theatrical landscape of Atlanta, there really is no place like Serenbe.
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