In the old tradition of sci-fi fantasy about children being relegated to fantasy realms, Madeleine L’Engle’s The wrinkles of time The child in question starts here with a rather miserable feeling. Thrilling adventures await you, and happier days may be ahead for Meg Marie, the book’s young heroine, but she has to cross many darkness to reach the light.
The gloomy stages of Meg’s journey are appropriately reflected in the adaptation of the Arena Stage’s world premiere, featuring Heather Christian’s music and lyrics and Lauren Yi’s book. Lee Sunday Evans recently performed a Christian one Oratorio for creatures To receive many acclaim, Off-Broadway will oversee this atmospheric production starring Taylor Iman Jones (Broadway’s Six)As Meg, he’s a bright but really sorry middle school student.
Born to feel conflicted with the world, she sings in “Meg Inside Out,” expressing her many frustration with two heartfelt lamentations and “Always My Guard.” There is a lot to be angry about her, considering she generally feels misunderstood by everyone, including her mother (Andrea Jones Sojora).
Her physicist dad left the house on a stormy night many years ago and never returned. At school, she has to fight traps and gossip from her classmates who spread rumors about her missing father and her sensitive younger brother, Charles Wallace (Mateo Lizcano). And despite her amazing aptitude for mathematics and science, her mathematics teacher gave her an “F” on the challenge of not being able to show her work.
The child can feel like he is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, and Jones takes a sound look at the gravity of Meg’s adolescent anxiety, singing the role in a vibrant personality, but restraining it. Her Meg is sad, but not self-remarkable, very clever, still innocent, living under a dark cloud of chaos, yet still open and curious.
This set is illuminated by Janet Oiscu Yi to reflect strong feelings of the story in the world of Meg’s world, saturated blue and red, by an interdisciplinary international design collective known as Dots. And Jones persuades Meg’s raucous inner life through the incredible strings of music and music soaring into the lush orchestration of green orchestration.
Similarly, Lizkano, who portrays Telepas Charles Wallace, depicts trauma, identifies the beautiful longing for the boy’s unconnected connection in Roping’s minor key ode, “What is Father?”. Their dad had been left so long that Charles Wallace doesn’t keep his memory, but his mother left in vain, but her memories seem to be fixed.
This family could use miracles and, fortunately, divine intervention is ongoing. First of all, Mrs. Whatsit (Amber Gray) is blown away like a fierce but very friendly wind to inform the mysterious Meg that “there is something like a tesseract.” The gentle, gentle, goodwill kindness of grey actually blows like the breath of fresh air.
Later, Mrs. Stacey Sargeant appears to be mixed with her language, covered in prominent quotations from poetry, literature and pop culture. Finally, the Terrifying Lady (Vicki Lewis) floats to drop more knowledge by explaining the three ladies as Stardust, Angels, Guardians, Mothers and Witches.
It can move across time, space and dimensions through wrinkles in the structure of beings known as Tesseracts. They can also help the brothers find their father.
So they join Meg’s lustful schoolmate Calvin (Nicholas Baron) on an intergalactic interdimensional journey to rescue his father (John Patrick Walker) and lead the pair to restore some sense to this broken family.
Wonders and magic can begin, and with elements of stagecraft and character design, the show brings a wonderful surprise like the furry beasts of a giant intersecting with Meg on a distant planet. And, generally, Evans maintains his naked stage as a wide open palette for interpreting countless moods and places, finds the clever use of turntable stages and trapdoors.
But the show rocks with that pacing as Meg’s adventures “tesser” her and her crew from the earth to flowery Uriel and shadowy Camazotz. Direction stumbles on physical representation without using stage effects.
Almost an act two is then given to the second rescue mission, which feels like it stretches to its own epic cycle. You may feel trapped in Shadow Planet with the Camazotians.
Meg’s melancholy has more personality to the complicated reality of life at Murrys’ home than the dimension-hopping fantasy. In that sense, the show may peak too soon, but from that summit we can see an emotional vision of this girl’s past, present and future.
Time wrinkles (★★★☆☆) Arena Stage until July 20th, 1101 6th St. Sw. Tickets range from $69 to $209 with discount options. Call or visit 202-488-3300 www.arenastage.org.
Source: Metro Weekly – www.metroweekly.com
