Strength of ‘Rabbit’ lies in warm humor

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, April 12, 2007

EVERETT – In the fanciful imagination of a young child, all beloved toys are real.

The New Everett Theatre players get to inhabit that creative world of child’s play in its charming production of “The Velveteen Rabbit” by Phil Grecian. The show, directed by Rachel Bowen, is based on the classic children’s story by Margery Williams about the power of love to make a toy spring to life.

As Act One unfolds, the energetic young Alex (Autumn Lambright) charges around his nursery slaying fearful imaginary dragons as his guardian Nana (Carolyn Cox), dressed in conservative long black skirt and high-collar white blouse, stands by. One immediately notices Will Bowen’s pleasing set design, featuring slabs of yellow, green and blue that suggest the nursery walls, surrounding a prominent toy box and high poster bed.

Soon, several references are made to the scarlet fever that is infecting many children in the area, a disease young Alex terms the Scarlet Fear. With all his friends sick and no one to play with, Alex resorts to even more imaginary play, and his toys assume an even bigger role in his life.

Alex’s confidants of the toy realm include the skin horse (Laura Kessler), a wind-up mouse (Janice Hastings), Timothy the lion (Tim Lambright), Bulka (Scott Mitchell) and the newly acquired Velveteen Rabbit (Scot Garrett).

After Alex falls asleep, his toys come to life and humorously commence kvetching about their cramped quarters in the toy box. They also resort to some one-upsmanship as they compare the quality and craftsmanship of their fabrication.

Skin Horse is the wisest of them all, telling the Velveteen Rabbit that becoming real takes time and doesn’t happen easily. The way to be real, he says, is to be loved by a child – loved so much that your ears go floppy, your nose loosens up, your fur gets rubbed off, and your eyes cloud over or fall out altogether. But not to worry. “When you’re loved,” Skin Horse tells Velveteen Rabbit, “you can never be ugly.”

Meanwhile, as Alex continues his carefree merry-making, the ominous Scarlet Fear (True Lambright) slaps at the window, a portent of things to come.

Balancing the fear of Scarlet Fever is the benign beneficence of the Toy Fairy, who also appears at Alex’s window in a blue light, with bubbles blowing around her and the sound of giggling children accompanying her every move. The Skin Horse has told the Velveteen Rabbit that the Toy Fairy (Chelsea Linn) is the final arbiter of who gets to be real or not. The Toy Fairy explains to the rabbit the ultimate rule to becoming real: You must be loved and you must give love in return.

Scarlet Fear returns to take down Alex, accompanied by Scarlet Panic (Ruth Song) and Scarlet Chaos (Margaret Mullin), and announced by the sound of an amplified heartbeat. The show cleverly symbolizes this ravaging, invading disease by clothing the three in black and red costumes, and unfurling red banners from the ceiling to suggest the nursery being enveloped in sickness.

Meanwhile, the Velveteen Rabbit, loyally at the sick boy’s side, is visited by real bunnies (Margaret Mullin and Ruth Song), who decry the Velveteen Rabbit’s difference. His ears don’t stand up, and he has no hind legs to help him hop. “Different isn’t a bad thing,” the Velveteen Rabbit says. “Skin Horse told me so.”

“So, you talk to horses?” is the hares’ droll reply.

Indeed, this show’s strength is the humor it employs. It has fun as well with all the childish squabbling that goes on between the animals. There are the familiar argumentative retorts of “Am so!” and “Are not!”

It is a shame, though, that the lighting is not better. One strains to make out the faces of the actors.

Ultimately, the Velveteen Rabbit finds his heart and love for the boy when faced with a choice of going with the Toy Fairy or staying and fighting for the boy. It will be his love for Alex that vanquishes the Scarlet Fear. (Oh, that disease eradication were so easy!)

The show ends with the Toy Fairy offering some reassuringly wise words. “Love makes all things real, little rabbit.”

Ben Benninghoff photo

Autumn Lambright portrays Alex in “The Velveteen Rabbit.”