Carousel Theatre for Young People presents James and the Giant Peach until Jan. 4 at The Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island. Tickets: $18/$29/$35 at carouseltheatre.ca or 604-685-6217.
It's not traditional holiday theatre fare, but the musical adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic 1961 children's novel James and the Giant Peach carries a message akin to the best-loved stories of the season.
Carousel Theatre for Young People's production of the show runs until Jan. 4 at The Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island and stars 11-year-old Julian Lokash in the title role. He shares the stage with a motley cast of garden critters including a grasshopper, ladybug, centipede, spider and earthworm.
"It's a wonderful story about family," says Carole Higgins, director of the production and artistic director of Carousel. "James Henry Trotter, when the show starts he is an orphan and throughout the show he discovers a wonderful family, and throughout the book too, in this host of insects that he meets. So it becomes a very wonderful loving adoptive family and I think that's a wonderful message for this time of year."
The musical was developed by Tony-nominated songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and made its world premiere in Seattle last fall. Like the book, the musical follows the story of James, a little boy who is shipped off to live with his two cruel aunts after his parents are gobbled up by a rhinoceros. Things turn around for James, though, when he discovers a giant magical peach inhabited by fantastical creatures. Together, the new friends embark on a grand adventure in their stone fruit vehicle.
"When you adapt a work for the stage, you can't include absolutely everything, so there have been a few things left out," Higgins explains of the 90-minute theatrical incarnation of Dahl's book. But the British author's famously dark sense of humour is present throughout."I think that the musical, while being very bright and hopeful, also stays very, very true to the source material and doesn't shy away from some of the loneliness or darkness that appears at the beginning of James' journey," Higgins says.
Due to some scary moments and macabre themes, this production is recommended for ages six and up.Higgins, a Kitsilano resident, grew up in North Vancouver and is in her 14th season as artistic director of Carousel. She still remembers the day she fell in love with theatre. "I certainly recall very vividly my first theatre experience when I was three years old and I think it has stayed with me all my life. That's why I am in theatre," she says, recounting a Christmas production she watched in Lethbridge, Alta. in which a family friend played a fairy princess. "That just seemed pretty amazing that somebody could be a princess on stage - a fairy princess at that."
Higgins went on to earn her BFA in acting at Simon Fraser University and has long been committed to engaging children in live theatre. "Arts and culture, and particularly theatre, play a very important role in the development of young people," she says, explaining that fostering creative expression and imagination is especially important in today's digital age. "It's really wonderful to just put the electronics down and be transported through a wonderful story, whether it be through theatre, music, dance, a great book - whatever it is, I think that those are incredibly important parts of being a human being."
Higgins read James and the Giant Peach when she was a child and isn't surprised by the book's enduring popularity. As with any great literature, she says, it's all about the story.
"It's a great adventure story, it has, certainly, elements of a hero story in it in terms of James rising to the occasion and really overcoming some real challenges and adversity," she says. "We have this little boy, who in many ways is an underdog, and is empowered throughout the story."
The term "theatre for young people" can sometimes be a misnomer, Higgins says, as the genre is often dismissed as being just for children. "Not the case at all" with Carousel's production of James and the Giant Peach, she says.
"It's a wonderful show that the whole family can enjoy together."
