‘James and the Giant Peach’ is ripe with wonders
CROCODILE tongues, horrible aunts, a ravenous rhinoceros and a boy and his bug buddies at home in a peach: Roald Dahl’s fantastical tale “James and the Giant Peach” is chockablock with wonders, a challenge for any theater company to realize on stage.
South Coast Repertory can’t quite match the magic or the bizarre tone of the classic in its new production, but David Wood’s engaging adaptation, an able professional cast and colorful design elements on SCR’s Julianne Argyros Stage give young audiences plenty to ooh and aah over.
Tousle-haired Alex Miller nicely anchors the strange goings-on as James, orphaned when his parents are devoured by a rhinoceros and forced to serve as drudge for his despicable aunts, Spiker and Sponge.
An encounter with a mysterious benefactor (Tom Shelton) leads to a magic spell gone awry.
The result: A peach swells to enormous size and becomes home -- and air and sea transportation -- to James and a gaggle of friendly giant insects.
Louis Lotorto and Jennifer Parsons play Centipede and Ladybug, respectively, and double up as James’ wicked aunts with comic relish, playfully aided by costume designer Angela Balogh Calin.
Calin has dressed insects and aunts in candy-colored, circus-flavored flights of fancy, making grumpy Earthworm (Shelton) tubular in quilted pink satin and Grasshopper (Gregg Daniel) dapper in a swoopy green swallowtail jacket and knee britches. (The modified leotard look that Diana Burbano sports as kindly Spider, though, is a bit disappointing.)
Set designer Sibyl Wickersheimer provides the modern sculpture look of a framework suggesting the New York skyline. Her painted backdrops representing the mountainous peach get a special glow from lighting designer Lonnie Rafael Alcaraz, who provides spooky shadows and daylight when James and company sail across the Atlantic, braving sharks -- unseen, but comically suggested by composer-sound designer Josh Schmidt.
Director Shelley Butler’s challenge is to keep the six-member cast from tossing lines to each other in line-up formation on the curving ramp of Wickersheimer’s peach-top platform and front strip of flat stage. When she succeeds, connections between actors and between actors and audience rev up nicely, doing justice to this pleasurably odd tall tale.
*
‘James and the Giant Peach’
Where: South Coast Repertory, Julianne Argyros Stage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
When: 7 p.m. Friday; 2, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 2 and 4:30 p.m. Sunday
Ends: Sunday
Price: $14 to $26
Info: (714) 708-5555, www.scr.org
Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
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