Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory

[shannon_a]

Kimberly & I went out today to see the last musical of the season from the Berkeley Playhouse: Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. At the story of the season, it was the one that caught my eye most, for its pure evocativeness.

In retrospective, I'm somewhat surprised that anyone ever decided to do this as a musical. As I said, when Kimberly & I talked, the tour of the Wonka factory is all about moving from one place to another, which doesn't translate well to a static stage. As she said, the factory is all about pure wonder of magical things, and that doesn't translate well either, especially to a very local theatre with a limited budget. I figure that someone must have been enchanted by the Oompa Loompa songs (which appear in the book in much longer form).

In any case, it was a fun show nonetheless. It was no Seusical, but I've learned that the first Berkeley Playhouse play we saw has since picked up a lot of awards, so that's a pretty high standard to compare things to.

I actually found the blocking of the two acts of Willy Wonka very interesting. The first act was all about kids looking for the tickets (and the dire straits of Charlie's family getting even worse), and over time we got slow & meaningful introductions to each of the brats other than Charlie. The whole time the Wonka factory was a constant presence on stage, with its closed gates cutting most of the stage off. It was kind of claustrophobic. So when the back half of the stage finally opened, when the kids went into the factory in Act Two, it was a wonderful relief.

The director also did quite a few neat things to try and convey the wonder of the factory. The chocolate stream was a billowing drapery, and Augustus just disappeared into it when he fell into the stream. The computer (inventing?) room was the neatest though, with lots of the actors having pulsing electronic thingies that let it seem like they were tossing computing lights back and forth.

The Oompa Loompas also came off quite well. Yeah, their costumes were slightly silly, but nothing distractingly so, and definitely not like the original movie. However, the Oompa Loompa song segments were just exquisite. The OLs were lit by tiny white lights and the fallen children by red. Mostly they just showed their faces. It was really creepy, which was a great direction to go.

Overall, the performances were good and the singing was good. Charlie, who was a teeny little boy, and VeronicaVeruca were particularly good. However it was the dancing and overall choreography that I found terrific (much of it stylized as fun & cool '70s dance moves). Much of that was the Oompa Loompas, and they just excelled.

Best of the Berkeley Playhouse season for me was Annie, but Willy Wonka was probably #2 (followed by The Pirates of Penzanze and last and least Lucky Duck). Good to have the best ones first and last, I guess.

And now we have to wait until September for the new season, which will kick off with The Sound of Music.