CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY: DARK, FUNNY, FULLY REALIZED

Peter Jorgensen’s directorial vision is crystal clear in this production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, he has assembled a stellar team to realize that vision, and his sure hand makes for a luxurious evening at the theatre.

Based on a novel by Roald Dahl, the material is weirdly — often hilariously — dark. Charlie Bucket is an impoverished kid who lives with his single mom and four grandparents. (The oldsters haven’t gotten out of their shared bed in 40 years.) Charlie dreams of being a chocolatier so, when the reclusive chocolate maker Willy Wonka announces a contest that will allow five children to tour his factory, Charlie’s heart lights up.

One by one, in Act 1, we meet the winners, which, inevitably, include our boy, young Mr. Bucket. There’s virtually no plot, but the textures are fantastic. The first winner, Augustus Gloop, is a young Bavarian glutton. This can come off as cruel — here, and in Matilda, Dahl clearly has it in for fat kids — but young actor Angus Silva is so demonically committed to the role that he owns it and makes it very funny, especially as Augustus and his mom yodel and slap dance their way through “More of Him to Love”. (This number is just one of the triumphs for choreographer Kerry Minty, who never makes a false or messy move.)

Winner number two, Veruca Salt, is a little Russian ballerina. All the featured child actors in this production nail their characters’ voracious appetites; Mana Nakamura clearly understands that Veruca’s addiction is to getting her own way: “Daddy! Buy me North Korea!” Lynnéa Bartel Nickel, who’s playing Veruca’s dad, a peanut oligarch, is a woman, and the cross-gender casting matters not a whit as she rewards us with her singing voice, which sounds classically trained.

Actor Elle Hanson (Violet Beauregard, a chewing-gum celebrity) is a phenom, a pocket-sized pop star with talent atoms flying off her.

And Callum Templeton is bracingly committed to the murderous, screen-obsessed Mike Teavee.

In “That Little Man of Mine”, Mike’s mom Ethel gets some of the best lyrics in the show: “At 6 a.m. I look in on my darling/ To see if his restraints are holding fine/ For an hour I’m in heaven/ Till I loosen them at 7/ I love that little man of mine./ At 9 a.m. I make a special breakfast/ With thorazine and oatmeal I combine/ Then it has to be homeschooling/ Due to that court ruling/ They never proved a thing/ I love that little man of mine.” Jennie Grenelle, who performs these lyrics, is perfection, hilariously desperate and in denial, but still swinging through the ballad with a satisfyingly full voice.

Hanna Mack and Nicolas Lam bring generous dollops of wit to their portraits of newscasters Cherry Sundae and Jerry Jubilee.

You’re probably getting the idea that the show is generally very well cast — and I haven’t even talked about Henry Sudds (Charlie) and Peter Ricardo (Willy Wonka) yet. Sudds is a precise singer and solid young actor who confidently carries a good deal of the production. And Ricardo is magical. His big, spacious voice floats us through the lyricism of songs including “The Candy Man” and “It Must Be Believed to Be Seen”. Ricardo is also dashing and brings the requisite satanic flash: in Act 2, as golden-ticket winner after golden-ticket winner meets their gruesome fate inside Wonka’s factory, Ricardo puts a wicked deadpan spin on lines like (I’m paraphrasing), “Oh. No, Veruca. No. That’s dangerous.”

Act 2 essentially repeats Act 1’s episodic structure, which tested my tolerance for lack of plot and thematic accumulation. That’s a negative worth noting, but it’s not the fault of the production, and I continued to appreciate this mounting’s overall conception.

Thanks to designer Brial Ball, the flat set pieces — the grandparents’ bed looks more drawn than built — seem to have emerged from a picture book, all curvy white lines on a dark, dusky blue background. And, in Act 2, Ball ups the ante inside the factory, with considerable help from lighting designer Robert Sondergaard, who also creates a spectacular effect when Charlie and Willy go floating through the night sky.

The witty costumes are by Christine Reimer. Ethel Teavee’s dress, with is bold green-and-white swirls and full 50s skirt — accented with an orange sweater and orange shoes — is a knockout, as is Wonka’s eyepopping combination of yellow plaid pants and brocade jacket.

But it might be in the grace notes that you can see Jorgensen’s skill as a director most clearly: the way Wonka can light up the tip of his cane, turning it into a microphone to summon his slaves, the Oompa Loompas; the flurry of paper airplanes that come flying onto the stage in the finale, reminding us of the hopefulness with which Charlie sent a letter to Willy Wonka in the early going.

It’s too bad about the Act 2 lull, but this production is still impressively well realized, and, as with my favourite chocolate, the material is deliciously dark.

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY Book by David Greig. Music by Marc Shaiman. Lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman. Based on the novel by Roald Dahl. Songs from the motion picture by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. Directed by Peter Jorgensen. A Theatre Under the Stars production running in rep at Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park until August 15. Tickets and information

PHOTO CREDIT: That’s Peter Ricardo (yellow pants) as Willy Wonka and Henry Sudds to his left as Charlie Bucket. (Photo by Emily Cooper)