I haven’t seen the film or read the book, but Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the musical comes into its own when it’s at its nastiest. There are upsides and downsides to this. (I’m mostly going to deal with the downsides first, but hang in with this review if you want to get to the more positive stuff, because it’s also significant.)
In Act 1, we meet Charlie Bucket, who lives in poverty with his single mom and four grandparents, who never leave their shared bed. Charlie dreams of finding one of the five golden tickets that will win him the chance to enter Willy Wonka’s mysterious chocolate factory and maybe even nab the grand prize, which he believes is a lifetime supply of chocolate.
From the jump, we know where this is going, which means there are zero plot surprises in Act 1; we just watch the other four kids and then Charlie find their tickets. There are surprises, however, in the eccentric, character-based specifics. One of the winning kids is a demanding Russian ballerina, for instance, another a tech-obsessed Midwestern-American boy who may have murdered his neighbours.
Things get more interesting in the decidedly darker second act, which is driven by the flamboyantly sinister Willy Wonka.
There are major plot “spoilers” coming up. I doubt that knowing this info would truly spoil your enjoyment of the show, but you be the judge. Stop reading or not. You’ve been warned.
As Willy Wonka tours the five children — plus one parent for each of them — through his chocolate factory, four of the kids are punished for their various forms of greediness, some with certain death, some with very likely death. A gluttonous Bavarian boy named Augustus, for instance, defies Wonka’s rules and drinks from the factory’s flowing chocolate river, which sucks him in and washes him away, never to be seen again — by us, at least.
There is something to be said for comic violence. Kids like it, for one thing, and kids are Roald Dahl’s primary audience. (Dahl wrote the original book, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, as he did with Matilda, which was made into a much better musical.) Surprise, including slapstick, is fundamental to comedy. So is transgression, and, if it’s obvious that nobody’s really getting hurt, who cares?
In some instances, I do. Dahl regularly uses fat kids’ fatness as a comic device, for instance. That’s what’s going on with Augustus in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and with another one of the winners, who eats something she’s been told not to — and gets bigger and bigger until she explodes. There are going to be fat kids in the audience. So, on that level, screw you, Roald Dahl.
For broader context, Dahl originally presented the Oompa Loompas, who work in Wonka’s factory, as African pygmies, which is flat-out racist, and he was an unrepentant anti-Semite. Giant, a show about Dahl’s antisemitism, is currently playing in London, starring John Lithgow.
Still the character of Willy Wonka is a pretty great comic invention. Wonka pretends to care about the kids that he’s picking off, but he really doesn’t. He barely takes the time to say “I am so sorry” before moving on to the next adventure. There’s something liberating about this comic audacity, which also acts simultaneously as a parody of hypocrisy — Donald Trump springs to mind — and sentimentality.
And there are many other times when this unleased sensibility is genuinely funny — when Mike, the Midwestern kid, needs to negotiate an invisible maze, for instance, and gets hit in the head by a flying frying pan. It’s mimed; it’s a cartoon, nobody’s getting hurt, and it’s executed here by Eric Gibson (Mike) and Daniel Curalli (Willy Wonka) with delightful comic precision.
Curalli’s performance is pretty much all-round wonderful. He has rich voice with a wide range. Physically, he’s so quick and alert. And he leans into Wonka’s comic sadism with hilarious ease.
I also particularly enjoyed Sanders Whiting’s performance as Charlie’s Grandpa Joe: it adds fully textured humanity to Act 1, which is pretty arid in other ways. Paula Higgins is also warm as Charlie’s mom, and she has one of the strongest voices in the large cast.
Joshua Severyn is inventive and committed as Augustus, as are Julia Eckert (newscaster Cherry Sundae), and Cathy Wilmot in a number of roles.
Quinlan McDonald, who’s playing Charlie, alternating with Grayson Besworth, has a clear voice and nails many of his comic moments. As an actor, he needs to learn to perform with intention — with an understanding of and feeling for what his character wants — but that will come.
The huge, colourful set is by Brian Ball. And director Mark Carter is the guy who pulled this all together.
As a musical, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is notably lumpy in some ways, but a lot of fun in others, and CTORA Theatre’s production is impressive.
CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY Book by David Greig. Music by Marc Shaiman. Lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman. Songs from the motion picture by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. Based on the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. Directed by Mark Carter. This CTORA Theatre production is running at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre until October 27. Here’s where to get tickets and information.
PHOTO CREDIT: One very good reason to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Daniel Curalli as Willy Wonka (Photo by Canna Zhou)
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