Theater Review: The Giver

by Mark-Brian Sonna of of MBS Productions

I just spent a very grim hour and a half watching the current offering at Dallas Children’s Theater. The Giver is a play by Eric Coble based on the best selling and award winning book by Lois Lowry.

The Giver is based on a well trod concept of science fiction: The dehumanization of the self in exchange for a utopian world. In this take, the story focuses around the life of a 12 year old boy, Jonas. The world he lives in has been wiped out of any individuality for the comfort and protection of all. Even all colors from the world have been eliminated. Each member of society by the age of 12 is assigned a task that he or she must do for the rest of their life. In the case of Jonas, he assigned to be the “Receiver of Memory”. In other words he will keep the memory of what the world was like: its beauty, its wars, its flavors, its colors, etc. He is paired up with “The Giver”, an older man who telepathically transmits these memories to Jonas. Incrementally Jonas begins to realize that the utopian world has at its core voided all humans the ability to feel love. All humans that either age past a certain point or do not fit the norm are ‘released’. Jonas eventually discovers that the term ‘released’ is another term for ‘killed’. This triggers a domino effect for he soon discovers that many of those around him are involved in this, including his father whose job responsibility is infanticide. It gets worse, but I don’t want to spoil the play if any of you who wish to see it.

According to the press packet I received when I walked into the theatre, The Giver as a play premiered in 2005 at “Oregon’s Children’s Theatre to critical acclaim.” I’m curious to see how they staged their production. The play is extremely wordy, and the action is static. In an hour and half there were numerous brief scenes, and though DCT was able to create quite a few wonderful stage effects, the effect of it was of watching a stage adaptation of a film. Many of the “action” sequences have to be described because of the physical limitations of the stage. DCT was able to use a projector effectively to convey some of the action, but it still lacked the quick cuts and editing of film since the projections had to be superimposed upon the stage. The only special effect that truly worked was the snow fall scenes, these had a magical quality. The press packet mentions that this will be turned into a film, and no doubt it will be magnificent.

I must commend all the young performers for giving solid performances. Shaun Senter plays the lead Jonas at the performance I saw (the show’s youth parts are double cast) and is quite a talent. I last saw Mr. Senter at Teatro delle Muse’s production of High School Musical in which he was exceedingly entertaining, funny and amusing. In this production he is very serious and is required to carry the weighty show. He develops a very believable character arc as he becomes more and more human. This kid has range. The other young performers are Austin Gorny as Asher, who goes from being a clumsy kid to being a dangerous presence; Collen Breen as Lily and Alexander Hoover as Fiona both are able to convey the artificial sweetness that becomes threatening as the play progresses; and even the minor roles of Madeline and Inger played by Siobahn Kelley and Noelle Low were effectively portrayed.

The adults were a little more of a mixed bag. I’m not sure it was so much their talent as much as the script which saddles them with such wordy scenes. They succeeded in sounding artificial, but their inherit malevolence gets diluted in their monotone delivery. A more ‘humanized’ line reading along with their lack of emotions would have still conveyed the brain washing of their emotions, yet kept the audience more on edge. The Giver played by Douglas Burks needed to have a greater intensity of emotion. He is the one allowed to feel. He is remarkably natural in this role. This play is a grand morality tale; he needed to be more extreme with his feelings. Again, he wasn’t given the lines to support it but he could have still layered in a higher level of intensity.

The sound, lighting, costuming, sets were very good. Everything was grey, including the apples brought on stage. It’s visually stunning so that when color appears on the stage it shocks. Unfortunately the direction of the play took this very sameness of grey to the pacing of the show. Each scene plodded at the same pace. This is not a play with much action, but the pacing of line delivery, and of the scene changes was always the same. Even when Jonas begins to break free the pacing of those scenes played out the same as the rest. Artie Olaisen, the director needed to change they rhythm, and he didn’t. I began to get bored 2/3 of the way through. Unfortunately the big revelations happen in the last 1/3 of the play, so while unexpected, they lost their shock value for tedium had set in.

If you have a sophisticated teen that doesn’t mind wordy plays and likes to muse philosophy, or you are a big fan of the book, this show is worth seeing. If not, wait for the film to come out.

The Giver runs until April 20 and you can purchase tickets online or by calling 214-740-0051.