"Merlin" in Groove for Walden
April 24, 2003By JOHN MOORE
Denver Post
LAKEWOOD - By the end of the Walden Family Playhouse's new production of "Merlin's Apprentice," it is clear that both the curmudgeonly sorcerer and the new children's musical theater itself have found their identities and their magic.
Walden stumbled a bit out of the gate with "Rock Odyssey," a well-intentioned but disjointed epic whose heart got lost with Homer at sea. It was impossible to get a clear sense of what the playhouse is ultimately going to be.
The charming "Merlin's Apprentice" is a much more focused and successful example of the wizardry of effective children's theater. And it gives us a more reliable sense of what we can expect from Walden. It will stand out as the most ambitious children's theater in the region, one that will introduce literary staples to children at a very simple level while employing dazzling visual effects.
Nothing wrong with that, but the gap between Walden and other children's theaters is not so big after all. Walden is aiming squarely at the same demographic as the Arvada Center, which is to say at audiences whose ages are in the single digits.
This terrain is fertile and highly marketable but crowded and safe. Walden will apparently not reinvent a wheel that badly needs reinventing. Instead it will bypass the terribly underserved teen audience by staying away from profound contemporary issues.
Walden, of course, should be judged not by what it could have been but for what it actually is. And "Merlin's Apprentice" shows it to be pretty darned good. It is a charming story riddled with riddles, surprises and colorful characters.
Parents will cheer the presence of a young female heroine, as well as the show's subtle method of internally engaging both the kids' memories and their ability to solve riddles. Abigail, and her audience, must use their noggins not only to set straight a 600-year-old mystery, but to distinguish the good guys from the bad.
The loosely adapted story centers on 11-year-old Abigail, a girl who prefers tales of medieval magic to the boredom of her junior-high science class. When she finds herself in the land of Subterra, she encounters the duplicitous Morgan LeFay, a sorceress who schemes the girl into helping her acquire three artifacts from the forgetful Merlin that would bring Morgan world power.
Charles Dean Packard deserves top billing for a great, multilevel set design that fluidly incorporates a quicksand pit and a boiling hot cauldron into a vast underground forest.
Young Sarah Zanotti is a marvel as Abigail. Anyone who can sing like this girl can at 10 in the morning is a star in my eyes.
The usually more gregarious Frank Oden shows some bombastic restraint to the great benefit of his cantankerous Merlin (a very nice touch is how puffs of dust repeatedly billow from his hair). Rebecca Kupka is the rare, thoroughly likable demonness, but the wonderful Scott Foster steals the show as her wailing man-dog Morlock (his "The Doggie Blues" is an instant classic).
The rest of the score is fine, but the cheery ensemble hit "Wake Up" drives home the point that this show is far too dependent on ballads. There is an unmistakable "Wizard of Oz" undertone to "Merlin's Apprentice." The three missing items that together constitute total power are a golden orb, a crystal scepter and an iron sword, which represent bravery, compassion and smarts. And in the end, Abigail discovers that there is a world of magic to be found inside her boring old science book.
Everything exudes earnestness and positive messages—until the very end, when the vanquished Morgan pleads with Merlin to restore her tarnished beauty. After such a great, girl-power story, it's a disappointing misstep to end with the now rehabilitated Morgan saying that she can accept losing everything but her looks.
