Around Des Moines

Sarah, Plain and Tall, now playing at the Des Moines Playhouse, comes close to being the theatrical equivalent of a chick flick. The children don’t need to know that, though. The play, based on the Newbery Award-winning book by Patricia MacLachlan and adapted to the stage by Joseph Robinette, has a female protagonist, a female narrator, and female characters driving the plot. This is a family story, however, and there are husbands for the women and a young boy among the cast.

It is one of the longer plays that I’ve seen in the Kate Goldman Children’s Theatre, coming in at 90 minutes, plus a 15-minute intermission. The play is a tender story about loss and the discovery that life can still be wonderful if the survivors find peace within themselves. This is a universal theme that has been written about millions of times. In this particular story, the children who suffered the primary loss are still young. Consequently, some of the older youth in the audience seemed to be more restless and less interested than the younger attendees. The Playhouse recommends a minimum age of 5 years and for this play I would suggest a maximum age of 12, unless your child really likes theatre. That does not mean mothers should not see the play themselves. In fact, they should drag the men in their lives along with them to make sure the guys learn it is okay to do the dishes.

The story, set approximately in 1912, is strong and Todd Buchacker has done a fine job directing. I found myself drawn into the play and surprised at how quickly the time passed. Megan Myhre and Brandon Lee performed well against each other as Sarah Wheaton and Jacob Witting. There was no doubt that change in their relationship must come when a look was all it took to challenge the power of existing authority. Maddie Ripperger also performed quite well in the important role of the young Anna Witting. There were several lines at the March 29th show that were twisted momentarily and the youngest cast member mumbled a bit at one point. Those were minor distractions. Amy Flavell and Lexi Frank, as Rose and Violet Nordstrom, managed facial expressions that were so similar I had to double check the credits to make sure they really aren’t sisters.

Kevin Shelby’s scenic design disappointed me; I’ve come to expect much better from him. The layout of the scenery was very well done. My objection was with the furniture in the fisherman’s house and with the backdrop. I think Shelby was trying to echo the title line of plain and tall but the story needed a richer Kansas landscape.

Sound effects were good but the music that opened the first and second acts was inappropriate. I kept looking for woodland folks to start dancing in a glade instead of picturing the wind sweeping down from the Rockies or rushing in from the Atlantic.

M.R. Field writes reviews for AroundDesMoines.com.