Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: pure imagination
15 Nov 2024 - Photos by Dahlia Katz

Come with me and you'll be
In a world of pure imagination

As I grow older, I've found that my taste buds prefer darker chocolate with less sugar and more tartness. But after this candy-coloured production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I was ready to sink my teeth into the sweetest confectionary I could find. That's a compliment. This Charlie and the Chocolate Factory may be overstuffed with bright colours, energy, sight gags, exemplary singing, and slick energetic dancing, but the final result is, as the song says, "satisfying and delicious." The source material, Roald Dahl's book and the subsequent films, are vaguely, delightfully, disturbing, but director Thom Allison (La Cage Aux Folles, Rent, Mary Poppins, Killjoys, Elegies, Ragtime) turns what is basically a slasher musical into an ode to imagination. Final girl Charlie survives because he is always imagining what he, and others, would enjoy. What would lift their spirits. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is packed with imagination and the audience left with their spirits sky high.

It helps to have a phenomenal cast, but much imagination was lavished on a deceptively simple set by Brandon Kleiman that has one wow moment but otherwise takes us from Charlie's hovel home to a tour of the magical factory with ease. Mrs Teavee even  marvels, "It's the same room." Much of that transformational ability relies on animated projections by Laura Warren, that are functional and colourful with only a few extraneous, but amusing, sight gags (a Winter's Tale or Nutcracker reference?). Only twice did the action have to pause to cover for a set change which, considering the multitude of locales, is remarkable. I'm not sure which props are specific to this production, but a balloon and some puppets were succinctly clever and uproariously funny; walking that tasty line where we know what we're seeing is deceptive theatrical magic, and we see how it's being done, but we buy in completely and laugh at, with, ourselves for doing so. Gleefully exercising our imaginations.

Of course none of it would work without a cast that works hard and never lets it show. There are seemingly hundreds of costume changes as the performers zip offstage to reappear as a completely different character. Sliding easily from center stage to chorus, from dead child walking to Oompa Loompa. Costume designer Ming Wong must have used miles of Velcro. Only Breton Lalama (Hamlet, The Inheritance, King Lear, Queen Goneril) as Charlie never changes or dons a disguise. His initial innocence remains throughout but somehow never becomes saccharine. Wide-eyed wonder and plucky optimism are difficult states to sustain without becoming cloying, but Lalama tinges Charlie with just enough awareness to feel the tragedy that is being reacted to. And of course Charlie is the audience's surrogate of normality amongst a host of outsized and eccentric characters.

Larry Mannell gets laughs as the grandfather whose optimism infects Charlie's genes. He also has a spritely narrative-driving dance number with Lalama, and the gruff gumption to stand up to Willy Wonka. David Lopez (Company, Hello Again) is the hilarious bratwurst-eating champion Augustus Gloop, giving the line "But it's my sausage," just enough innuendo to bring down the house but keep Charlie and the Chocolate Factory a family show. But he really shines in the Veruca Salt ballet as a squirrel who gently but ferociously lures Veruca to her fate. Caitlyn MacInnis as Veruca is pertinently petulant but as a dancer is exquisite. Her pas de deux tantrum with the stalwart David Webb as her father, is not only fun and troubling, but impressively athletic. The other enabler, Deann Degruijter as Mrs Teavee, is an understandably frazzled mess. Her son, Nick Boegel as Mike Teavee, is the one character who actually exudes menace. Slouchy teenage skateboarder menace but nonetheless alarming. As a bonus, Degruijter also plays Mrs Green the vegetable/chocolate stand purveyor with an uproarious and mercenary sales technique.

Tiffany Deriveau as Ms Beauregarde is a Real Housewives Karen of an ambitious helicopter mother. Ruth Acheampong as her daughter Violet is almost as talented as she believes she is, and her frivolous Tik Tok ambition is palpable. Zorana Sadiq (Mixtape, CHILD-ISH, Towards Youth) goes from doting to soulless, from Charlie's mother to a newscaster who provides chunks of palatable exposition. Jacob MacInnis (Dion) is hilarious as one of Charlie's bedridden grandmothers but really shines as Mrs Gloop. Singing and dancing up a heavily accented storm with a show stopping exit line of "Let's yodel!" that almost makes one wish they would. And everyone, particularly after being dispatched, dons a polka-dotted jumpsuit to become a hard-working and vaguely coulrophobically ominous Oompa Loompa. As Willy Wonka, the mysterious master of ceremonies and chocolatiering, Michael Therriault sidesteps the oppressive shadow of Gene Wilder to present a showman who loves to entertain, and certainly does, but also has a deep need to manipulate. And dispose of inconvenient unsuitable children. He is loveable and immoral, and that turns out to be a charming combination.   

Also of note is the rich choral harmonies the cast produces. The songs unfortunately are not much melodically—and "The Candyman" is flat out annoying by this point—but the cast sells them with panache and dances with comic precision so that each set piece works. The music pilfers from popular culture—there is a contagious disco number and a not-too-regrettable rap—keeping everything slightly off-kilter thereby letting Terriault sell the traditional Broadway ballads with singular style. Exuberance is achieved. The imagination (and blood, sweat and tears) that has been lavished on this musical makes it shine. Charlie is not the only one who scribbled wild ideas into a notebook, but Allison and company brought the scribbles and ideas to vibrant life. Making us believe in that world of "pure imagination."