Delaware Theatre Company presents Emma Reeves's 'Hetty Feather'

The exultation of flight

Like Oliver Twist, Wilson’s orphan Hetty (Claire O’Malley) suffers some dark experiences. Her single mother knows that surrendering her to the Foundling Hospital is the child’s best hope for security in 1876 London, but it’s a cruel place that trains orphans to be only housemaids or soldiers, because children so low-class as to not have parents are unfit for anything better. Moreover, infants like Hetty are fostered to country families for their first six years, then ripped away and returned to the hospital to train for their menial fates.

Designer Katie Sykes uses the full height, depth, and breadth of Delaware Theatre Company’s spacious stage to create a circus ring with well-supported ropes, swings, and ribbons for climbing and spinning far above the stage floor. It’s decorated with flags which, on closer examination, are colorful children’s clothes. With little other furniture and props, as well as simple costume pieces over horizontally striped jumpsuits, Sykes and the cast conjure all the story’s many settings and characters. Some might be disappointed the circus only appears in two short scenes; however, Hetty’s exultation of flight and the theme of seeking three-dimensional freedom in a restrictive, one-dimensional world are always clear because of the circus apparatus’s allure and the cast’s adventurous movement.

Karen Peakes shines as two mother figures in Hetty’s life. Michael Philip O’Brien is harsh hospital matron Bottomly and also Jem, her protective older foster brother. Dave Johnson plays her meek foster brother, given up the same day as Hetty, and Terry Brennan is Saul, one of Hetty’s many adversaries. Rachel O’Malley plays Madame Adeline, the acrobat who inspires Hetty, and is also the Aerial Captain. The ensemble glides effortlessly from role to role, from fellow orphans to circus horses, oblivious aristocrats to farm animals.

Musical commentary

Benji Bower’s compositions, with additional material by Seamas H. Carey and Luke Potter, provide a constant accompaniment of music and foley sound created live by Liz Filios and Josh Totora, who are always visible stage right in a corner crowded with piano, drums, guitar, accordion, harp, and lots of fun percussion instruments. Hetty Feather isn’t a traditional musical with story-stopping songs; it’s more like bits of song burst out of characters, particularly Hetty, or provide commentary, as during a montage of hospital life when they sing the eerily persistent refrain, “She doesn’t want to be there. She wants to see her brother,” over and over. Music, lyrics, and book seem like one fully realized work.

Martin’s fine production embraces this stylistic consistency: Hetty’s plucky optimism is indomitable but not one-note, and the other performances, whether momentary sketches or main characters, are fully realized. Until the finale’s fast-forward of Hetty’s story, the pace feels relaxed and full of detail; Hetty Feather isn’t long, but it’s crammed with wry insights from Hetty’s wide-eyed child’s view that provide constant amusement.

Clare O’Malley is wonderful as Hetty, a gawky bundle of energy with bright-red hair who’s often tested but never crushed, but Hetty Feather’s success results from the combined efforts of director, performers, designers, and crew in a collaboration that is truly magical.