Alejandra Escalante |
Young, who also directs, is credited in the Playbill as an
adaptor, but this play is really a staging of L'Engle's original text,
abridged. This devotion to text, already a hallmark of OSF's work, brings
L'Engle's classic tale of embracing your flaws and allowing yourself to love
directly from the private pages of a book to the public space of the Angus
Bowmer theater.
Meg Murry (Alejandra Escalante) is swept away from her
suburban home with her genius little brother Charles Wallace (Sara Bruner) and
friend Calvin O'Keefe (Joe Wegner) by the three Mrs. Ws (Judith-Marie Bergan,
K.T. Vogt on opening night, and an unaccredited actress as Mrs. Which) to save
her father (Dan Donohue). The children learn from the Happy Medium (Kate
Mulligan) that all good things in the universe are at war with the Black Thing,
a heavy evil presence. Some of the best fighters in this war have come from our
insignificant planet - Jesus, Crazy Horse, etc. The Mrs. Ws tesser the children
through space-time to the planet Camazotz where Mr. Murry is being held captive
by IT, a malevolent intelligence through whose influence the entire planet has
succumbed to the Black Thing. In order to defeat IT and save her family, Meg
has to embrace her flaws - particularly difficult for an awkward adolescent
girl - and to discover the thing that "she's got that IT hasn't got."
At its core, that's just what L'Engle's story is - an
adolescent girl learning to accept herself for who she is. L'Engle and, by
staging her text, OSF invest us in Meg's journey by establishing a binary moral
code. This isn't hard for the audience to accept - we're brought up on binary
moralities, whether they be God versus Satan or American freedom versus foreign
oppression. In L'Engle's story, the Mrs. Ws are the standard bearers for Good,
and teach Meg to accept herself as an individual. IT, whose modus operandi is
to subvert the wills of others to ITs own, bears the standard for Evil. This
simple devise is the key to A Wrinkle in
Time's longevity and continued appeal - it encourages us, especially the
young adults among us who need it the most, to simply be ourselves and to
encourage those we care for to be themselves.
A Wrinkle in Time
is a joy to read and a joy to see on the Angus Bowmer stage. People of all ages
need stories that encourage them to love themselves. The Oregon Shakespeare
Festival is deeply invested in English and American theater classics, and A Wrinkle in Time is a welcome addition
to the OSF canon.
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