In the past, Akvavit Theatre’s offerings from the contemporary Nordic theatrical canon have felt decidedly on the bleak side, steeped in black humor and a frozen vein of static desperation. But their current offering provides a welcome thaw.
“Blue Planet,” adapted by Icelandic writer Andri Snaer Magnason from his celebrated kids book, “The Story of the Blue Planet,” imagines a world inhabited entirely by kids. Unlike, say, “The Lord of the Flies,” the kids on this planet live simply and happily. Sure, they have to club the occasional baby seal for sustenance, but nothing makes them yearn for more than they have.
That is, until the arrival of Jolly-Goodday (Michael T. Downey), a galaxy-trotting vacuum salesman who yearns to suck up their youth for his own nefarious ends. By helping the kids fly with the help of “butterfly powder” and by nailing the sun to the sky, Downey’s trickster serves as the stand-in for every despoiler who promises us that trading off long-term environmental protection for short-term personal satisfaction will be worth it.
But when Hulda (Sarah Scanlon) and Brimir (Joshua Davis) get lost and end up on the other side of the planet, where children live in darkness and hunger, they realize the true costs, even after Jolly-Goodday tells them, “There’s as much happiness on the planet as ever. It’s just been redistributed.”
If this all sounds unbearably dreary and polemical, fear not; both Magnason’s story and director Wm. Bullion’s staging overflow with the kind of gentle irony and well-placed whimsy that keeps “Blue Planet” from turning into “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Kim Morris’ Pippi-Longstocking-turned-grunge costumes and Morris and Adam MacAleavey’s clever puppets (including a red-eyed “wolf” that chases the clouds away from the land of perpetual sun) provide visual treats. At times the show reminded me of Sid and Marty Krofft’s 1970s kids’ show, “H.R. Pufnstuf,” particularly when a malevolent forest closes in on Hulda and Brimir. (In an instance of “chemicals aren’t always bad,” they escape because they’ve been coated with Jolly-Goodday’s “Teflon Registered Trademark Wonderstuff.”)
There are a few moments where the communitarian message of this eco-lit fable threatens to become heavy-handed, but for the most part it’s a funny and imaginative cautionary tale about our own embattled blue planet.
3 STARS
More Top Picks Best Winter Boots With Cleats
Through March 15, DCASE Storefront Theater, 66 E. Randolph St.; $15 at 800-595-4849 or akvavittheatre.org