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Big Fish review



Based on the original novel and on John August’s screenplay adaptation— August contributes the book here — this stage rendition covers the same territory but has a very different take on the material from Tim Burton’s film. It’s subdued where the film was overeager, beginning with the earth tones of Julian Crouch’s set design, an elegant assembly of irising wood slats that give a nod to the Southern setting while allowing for a series of total transformations, often with the help of fantastic projections, costumes, and lighting that enable, for example, tree roots to suddenly become people.

Emotionally the show is simplified where the film was a touch muddy; it smartly sacrifices a degree of Burton’s sophisticated depth for a more accessible relationship between father and son and between reality and fantasy. Whereas in the film the character of Edward Bloom was played as a young man by Ewan McGregor and as an old man by Albert Finney, he is here embodied at all ages by the wondrous Norbert Leo Butz (“Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” “Catch Me if You Can”), an approach that on the one hand allows Butz to display his extraordinary range of talents and also provides a more direct, undivided emotional connection to the character.

In the argument between the story-loving Edward and his literal, skeptical son Will (Bobby Steggert), this version exposes the depth of emotion early with an angry confrontation and song — “This River Between Us” — but also takes a clear stand in the fight. “You gotta dream big,” Edward tells the 6-year-old Will (Zachary Unger), “or you’re never gonna have a big life.” And Will’s mother (an excellent Kate Baldwin) both explains her husband’s storytelling and admonishes her son: “Each word becomes a poem / Each sentence filled with joy, / Can’t you try to be your father’s boy?” And finally, when Will asks the family doctor about the day he was born, a day that Edward has turned into the title tale of a big fish which became the opening number “The God’s Honest Truth,” the doctor explains that fantasy can be superior to reality: “Sometimes talkin’ is how a man makes sense of the world.”

This is where the show finds its most important, simplest success. Stroman, August, and composer-lyricist Andrew Lippa (“The Addams Family,” “The Wild Party”) know exactly when the story needs to launch into song, and the tunes take on the varying flavors of whatever adventure Edward relates. We meet the Witch (Katie Thompson, bringing down the house) who predicts young Edward’s death, Karl the giant (Ryan Andes, instantly likable) and the carnival barker Amos Calloway (Brad Oscar, phenomenal). Lippa has never been the most conventional of composers, but he’s a perfect fit for this unconventionally conventional show where he can create a pastiche of Americana.

Not everything works perfectly. The Act II opening, a patriotic, USO-inspired number depicting Edward’s fight against a comicbook-like villain, is corny without being fun enough. But that’s the rare example of where this show needs refinement. More generally, by taking Edward’s tales as the jumping-off point for the theatricality of production numbers, the show makes a case for the musical form itself as a means of privileging imagination over ordinariness. The show does have a target audience after all, and it’s those who love musicals.
Last Update:April, 06th 2016

Big Fish Lyrics

  1. Act 1
  2. Prologue
  3. Be the Hero
  4. The Witch
  5. Take Another Look Lyrics 
  6. Stranger
  7. Two Men in My Life
  8. Ashton's Favorite Son
  9. Out There on the Road
  10. Little Lamb from Alabama
  11. Time Stops
  12. Closer to Her
  13. Daffodils
  14. Act 2
  15. Red, White and True
  16. Fight the Dragons
  17. Showdown
  18. I Don't Need a Roof
  19. Start Over
  20. What's Next
  21. How It Ends
  22. The Procession
  23. Be the Hero (Reprise)

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