REVIEW
Tuck Everlasting
St. Albert Children’s Theatre
Runs until Dec. 2
Arden Theatre
5 St. Anne Street
Tickets: $22 to $28. Call Arden box office at 780-459-1542
Everyone ages. Hair turns white. Wrinkles appear. Shoulders stoop and energy melts away.
But what if you could live for eternity, forever frozen in time, forever youthful and full of vitality?
That’s the question faced in St. Albert Children’s Theatre winter production of Tuck Everlasting now playing at the Arden Theatre until Dec. 2.
Adapted by Claudia Shear and Tim Federle from Natalie Babbitt’s 1974 children’s novel, this musical fable centres on Winnie, an 11-year-old girl stifled by an overprotective mother.
Winnie longs to experience thrills and excitement. When she is forbidden from attending a travelling fair, the free spirit bolts and runs away to a mysterious forest.
She stumbles across, Jesse Tuck, a 17-year-old boy returning from an adventure to visit family. Seeing Jesse drink from a woodland spring, she tries to join him only to be pulled away.
The spring has a secret. It is the fountain of youth. It stops time for whoever drinks from its cool waters. Jesse and his family drank from it 102 years ago and they are now immortal, trapped in bodies that cannot die.
The Tucks kidnap Winnie and try to impress upon her the gravity of their secret. In meeting them, she discovers adventure and the friendship she’s been seeking. Ultimately she must make a choice whether to join them in immortality or stay within the cycle of life.
In a subplot, there’s Man in Yellow, a seedy carny that has spent his life searching for the spring, and plans to market the water in a get-rich-quick scheme.
The story poses philosophical questions within a homespun framework that somehow always manages to remain small and intimate.
Some of the smaller crowd-pleasing roles showcase Dustin Cook as the villainous Man in Yellow, and Cole Stevenson as the slow-witted Constable Joe and Woodley Carter as his eager junior partner Hugo.
The Tuck clan includes Matt Boisvert as Angus, the laid-back patriarch. He is a voice of wisdom that tells Winnie, ““Don’t be afraid of dying. Be afraid of not being truly alive.” And then there’s Declan Findlay as Miles, the older brother who gallantly sings a heart-wrenching tale about losing his family in Time.
But the show’s heart lies in the platonic relationship between Winnie (Jillian Aisenstat) and the eternally 17-year-old Jesse (Ben Brown).
Aisenstat skilfully balances her character’s youthful innocence with a self-possessed confidence and beautiful vocals that carry the show. And Brown deftly relays Jesse’s poignant mix of daring and loneliness.
Singer-songwriters Chris Miller and Nathan Tysen provide a decorative structure for the musical. One of the most charming songs is Mae Tuck’s My Most Beautiful Day. The matriarch relives the day her husband proposed on bended knee. Brooklyn Morgan’s lush voice immediately draws the listener into one of the musical’s most touching moments.
Tuck Everlasting fits splendidly in the St. Albert Children’s Theatre wheelhouse. Since the production is less familiar to audiences, it gives the theatre troupe an opportunity to put their own stamp on the show.
Although not a typical Christmas show, Tuck deals with family, love, life, loss and greed, themes we face daily. It tugs at the heartstrings and illustrates the belief in the quiet beauty of human life, however short it may be.
