Displaying items by tag: The Steadfast Tin Soldier

Let’s begin with a children’s story. A children’s story about children’s stories, really.

Long, long ago, there lived a boy who could not decide what he would be when he grew up. He might have grown up to sing songs or tally bills, to right wrongs or treat ills, but he just could not decide. Then one day, the boy met a wonderful enchantress — a creator and a raconteur who herself had vowed never to grow up, and who lived her life telling stories for children. She told the boy that he, too, needn’t ever grow up, for he had been placed in this world for the same purpose as her — to tell tales that enchant children, young and old. And so, the boy did just that for many years until one day, as boys sometimes do, he grew up and went on to smaller, lesser things. And while that ageless enchantress still tells stories to children while the tired, graying boy does not, somewhere deep inside him lurks a longing for that storybook world he left behind, a longing let out now and again when he reads or hears or sees a story told truly and lovingly, told for and to those who have yet to grow up.

I begin with that story because Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” was always the gold standard when that boy considered what a true and lovely children’s story is. Lookingglass Theatre’s The Steadfast Tin Soldier, written and directed by Mary Zimmerman, is the rare adaptation of a true classic that’s not only worthy and respectful of its source material, but takes it to new and wondrous places.

Show, don’t tell. That’s perhaps the first rule of good storytelling, and Zimmerman’s production adheres to that maxim. From the curious pre-show goings-on that evoke an advent countdown to both Christmastime and the curtain’s rise, to the inspired puppets and streamers and set pieces that create worlds within worlds on the Lookingglass stage, to the powdered wigs (“That’s Mozart!” my six-year-old cried when she spotted music director and arranger Leandro Lopez Varady take his seat at the piano) and classical instruments that arm the four-piece orchestra tasked with playing Andre Pluess and Amanda Dehnert’s exceptional score, a time and a place and a mood have been created before the story even begins.

Show, don’t tell. For the length of the play, not a word is spoken. I imagine that Ms. Zimmerman drew inspiration from silent movies, as her cast tells the story with what they show the audience — with their actions, with their bodies, with their faces, with their eyes.

John Gregorio and Joe Dempsey are the play’s active, madcap jacks of all trades, filling pointed elven shoes as puppeteers, scene-makers and set-movers, and various roles throughout. Dempsey’s Nursemaid is positively Pythonian in her prissy, proper pomp and posture. And Gregorio’s Rat, one of many parts he plays, adds a sense of gnawing doom and gloom.

As the ballerina, tucked away inside a doll’s house into which the audience is soon invited, Kasey Foster enchants both said audience and the titular tin soldier with her grace and her beauty. But she’s equally charming later on as a rambunctious rapscallion wreaking havoc in the Danish streets.

Anthony Irons’ costumes and props — as a wine-buzzed master of the house, as a masked fairyland creature of questionable species, and as a jack-in-the-box goblin who sets the story’s plot in motion — often capture the eye, but it’s his facial gestures I noticed most. From grins to glares to grimaces, Irons harkens character actors like Don Knotts with his oversized expressions that translate from the stage every bit as clearly as his castmates’ bodily movements.

But it’s Alex Stein’s Steadfast Tin Soldier who’s, quite literally by the end of it, the play’s heart. While the others frolic about, Stein’s one-legged plaything is destined to remain static, so it’s his eyes that show us all we need to know. Above, I wondered if Mary Zimmerman was inspired by the silent movies of yesteryear, and I think it’s Stein’s Buster Keaton-esque ability to tell it all with just one look that got me thinking that way, every bit as much as the entire wordless production did. When Stein’s eyes gleamed, brimming with tears, so did mine.

Perhaps he’s as old fashioned as those silent films of yore, but that boy who’s all grown up now is not a crier. Then this holiday play for kids of any age went and brought him to tears, the same as Hans Christian Andersen’s original children’s story always did. And maybe, just maybe, this children’s story told truly and lovingly will also remind that boy that he hasn’t yet grown up all the way and that there are still children’s stories of his own to tell — stories that delight and inspire, that entertain and touch — just like Lookingglass Theatre’s The Steadfast Tin Soldier is doing from now through January 26.