When actor-musician Conor Sheehan walks on stage, picks up a guitar and smiles at the audience, you know you’re in good hands.
With great simplicity, Sheehan opens the marvelous Merely Players’ production of “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.” The actor doubles as the hero, a rabbit doll, and the story unspools without intermission to tell a complex tale of adventure.
Based on Kate DiCamillo’s mesmerizing children’s book, the episodic story of a porcelain toy rabbit is full of unexpected turns, affection, uncertainty and inevitable loss. These are the themes that preoccupy DiCamillo in all her fiction. The story of a toy rabbit, first named Edward Tulane, then lost, tossed, rediscovered and renamed by subsequent owners, has the emotional resonance of a complex adult memoir.
If you go
WHAT: “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane,” based on a book by Kate DiCamillo, adapted for the stage by Dwayne Hartford, directed by Zachary Chiero.
WHEN: 7 p.m. Dec. 18, 19, 20; 2 p.m. Dec. 21.
WHERE: Merely Underground, 789 Tech Center Drive.
TICKETS: Sold out. Get on waitlist. $32-$36.
MORE INFORMATION: Visit www.merelyplayers.org or call 749-8585.
Adapted for the stage by Dwayne Hartford, artistic director of Childsplay, a Tempe, Arizona, company, “Edward Tulane” is wending its way into regional theaters. Last month, the University of Texas/El Paso staged it. So, once again, Merely co-founders Mona Wood-Patterson and Charles Ford have chosen a new work to delight fans.
Edward’s saga has the feel of a children’s classic. It’s a life-trajectory with many moving parts and different storytelling styles. Director Zachary Chiero has pulled everything through one telescope to launch a complex and colorful production.
Multiple narrators keep the story moving, and all the actors play multiple parts. Those include a variety of puppet roles, from colorful fish to menacing crows and angry stars. Tech Director and Scenic Designer Ford has extended his puppet wizardry in this production, most endearingly with Lucy, the dog, expertly voiced and operated by Jill Somrak.
The hero’s bumptious, owner-to-owner life may be complicated, but the storyline is never confusing. Narrators speed things along, and a shadow-screen extends storytelling in yet another theatrical dimension.
Costume Designer JoAnn Nevils and Props Manager Diane Panelli have stocked a virtual cabinet of curiosities. Sound and light technicians Cassandra Y. Owen and Heather R. Thomas provide crackerjack timing for stage magic, and the 10-member cast brings focus and delight to every scene.
With its detailed chapters and overall high-energy level, however, the 90-minute production could have incorporated an intermission if only to give the audience a breath to absorb complexity and catch up.
“Edward Tulane” joins “Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol” in alternating productions for theatergoers of all ages. Expect to see local actor Goeff Johnson playing Marley and 17 other characters in his solo presentation of redemption and renewal. The two holiday offerings run in repertory through Dec. 22.
American children’s fiction writer Kate DiCamillo, 60, has won multiple awards for her books, beginning with the Newberry Medal in 2005 for “Because of Winn-Dixie,” which later became a film. She followed her early success with a book about a fussy porcelain rabbit that experiences upheaval and loss only to learn how to rediscover love and connection. Rich in detail, the Edward Tulane story was adapted for the stage in 2022. Its human resonance has also undergone another artistic transmutation by Minnesota Opera.
As a child, DiCamillo experienced serious chronic illness, and her medical fragility required a family move to a warm climate. The dislocation tore her family apart when her father left. DiCamillo said that core childhood trauma later inspired all of her writing. Her fiction centers on themes of early loss, struggle, a search for connection and the importance of belonging.
Having read DiCamillo’s books, American novelist Ann Patchett has famously said she admires the author’s penetrating insight into the lives of children. Patchett dedicated her current bestseller, “Tom Lake,” to her mentor.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
