Quintessence Theatre Group presents 'Wilde Tales'

Bloom’s production is suitable for all ages, despite the stories’ themes, which are illuminated by his colorful approach. Doug Greene’s set is a large grassy platform, raked toward the audience, and the high-ceilinged deco architecture of the Sedgwick Theatre, Quintessence’s Mt. Airy home, which they always use creatively. We see a spacious backstage area that’s a wonderland of set pieces and props, where Jay Ryan’s lighting casts spooky shadows. Actors, dressed in colorful contemporary winter clothing by Jane Casanave, sit ready in that open space.

An ensemble of professionals play leading roles in the tales, supported by a children’s chorus that introduces each piece and plays smaller roles. One of them carries the book of Wilde’s fairy tales.

Five stories

“The Happy Prince” is a handsome heroic statue played by Mattie Hawkinson who can see the whole town from his lonely pedestal. He enlists a swallow — played by Vanessa Sterling with wings in her gloved hand, elegantly simple — to take his jewels, including his eyes, to help the needy. Richer townspeople are oblivious to the poverty among them and the pair’s sacrifices, giving their story of selfless love a sardonic edge.

A similar theme emerges in “The Nightingale and the Rose.” A bird (Ife Foy) helps a lovestruck student (Aneesa Neibauer) find a precious red rose to give to a haughty girl (Hawkinson). Love is not sexual in Wilde’s stories, but a pure passion that inspires great devotion and tragic sacrifice, which ordinary people don’t understand or appreciate.

Ashton Carter plays “The Selfish Giant,” who builds a fence, which received a hearty post-election laugh on opening night, to keep children out of his beautiful garden. Martina Plag’s adorable glove puppets, worn by the entire cast, create a frantic crowd of tiny children chased off by the giant.

“The Devoted Friend” is Wilde’s darkest story. Hawkinson plays Little Hans, a gardener used selfishly by Hugh the Miller (Michael Gamache) and Wife (Neibauer) on the pretext of friendship. Afraid of letting his friend down, Little Hans sacrifices more and more, but gets only Hugh’s glib empty promises of reciprocation. The story is told by a duck and her ducklings (rubber duckies, voiced by other cast members), which adds an absurd twist, amplifying Little Hans’s miserable plight.

Wilde pokes fun at egotism in all the tales, but none more than “The Remarkable Rocket,” in which Terence Gleeson plays a firework who thinks he’s the best no matter how much his circumstances prove otherwise (Wilde allegedly modeled the character after painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler). He’s the sole selfish creature who finally receives comeuppance, and it’s as harsh as the injustices done to Wilde’s more sympathetic characters such as the Swallow, the Nightingale, and Little Hans.

Light and magical

For all these serious themes, Wilde Tales maintains a light and magical tone. The adult performers are likeable and sincere, playing many different roles, even inanimate objects, with gleeful skill. They also step nimbly out of first-person action to narrate each other’s stories. Bloom uses quotations from Wilde's meditative prison writing, De Profundis, between each tale, set to music by composer David Cope and chanted or sung (often garbled, unfortunately) by the cast, giving the evening a gentle spiritual tone.

Wilde Tales's overall theme is not to take ourselves too seriously, but to take others more seriously. It’s a fine moral for people of all ages.