Little Women
Turnpike Players
Unitarian Society of New Haven
700 Hartford Turnpike, Hamden
Nov. 7-9 and 14-16
Friday, Saturday 7:30 p.m.; Sunday 2:00 p.m.
How can you put on a play in a time of war?
This is the question Jo March’s three sisters pose to her as she petitions them to play roles in a new script she has written, a play within a play in Little Women: The Broadway Musical, a theatrical adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Civil War-era novel Little Women.
I settled into my seat at the Unitarian Society of New Haven at 700 Hartford Turnpike in Hamden, watching the Society’s Turnpike Players perform the coming-of-age musical at their opening weekend after a nine-year hiatus. The seats were filled, the set was dressed to the nines, and the energy was palpable. For many in the crowd, it seemed, this show was a long time coming.
Jo, played by Robyn Genzano and the bold writer among her sisters, answers that war should not stop them from making stories. She launches into a rousing speech defending the inextinguishable human spirit. The musical itself, as well as the Turnpike Players’ rendition of it, is an exercise in letting the audience into the act of creation. It is a show that lays the effort bare.
One reason for this earnestness is that the story centers around the growth of a budding writer, reflecting Louisa May Alcott’s own journey as a writer in a marriage-focused society and sexist publishing landscape. When Jo declares her own self-determination, it is impossible not to root for both her and the writer who invented her.
And to adapt this story for the stage, not just as a play but as a Broadway musical? The nature of the medium cranks the highs higher and gives the lows a dramatic flourish, letting voices split into four-part harmony before bringing them back in perfect unison. Maria Berté, playing the girls’ mother, Marmee, belts her hopes and sorrows in resonant operatic flair.
Even the stage crew adds to the visible effort of the show. Dressed all in black, the crew disperses onto the stage after the lights turn low, arranging set furniture and switching out a curtain to signify different home interiors. I felt an appreciation for their quiet, skilled movements, not just because it’s fun to watch a play but because director Cindy Genzano wasn’t afraid to tell us to notice the crew.
Cindy’s before-show remarks covered not just the setting of Little Women and the hard work of the actors, but also everyone behind the scenes, down to the specifics. “Thanks to David Stagg for the lighting cable and the lighting pipe,” she said, beaming.
She also thanked music director Linda Pawelek for “bringing the Turnpike Players back to life” after the passing of Linda’s husband John, who was a central figure in the group. Cindy expounded more in the show’s program, writing, “John’s inspiring spirit is woven throughout this production in many ways, and I hope he would be proud of what we have accomplished together.”
The actors filled out their classic roles naturally, somehow making the sisters feel fundamentally different and still cut from the same cloth. As Jo, Robyn infused her movements with endearing brashness as a woman who doesn’t fit into prescribed feminine roles in society, while Gabriella Parache’s transformation from angsty little sister to refined wife as Amy played against Jo’s efforts to stay independent. Lauren Higgins thrust herself into romance as Meg, and Jane Nolan played an infinitely lovable Beth, tugging on the audience’s heartstrings as she let go of her kite string in Some Things Are Meant to Be.
At points in the show where Jo starts reading from her own script, her characters start to materialize on stage, whooshing in from behind the audience to take over her lines and make them their own. Their acting is obvious, exaggerated on purpose for both comedic effect and sweet acknowledgement of all the energy that goes into putting on a play. It would be hard for me to believe the actors behind these characters could perform in any other way, except that I had just seen the same actors play serious, realistic roles a moment before.
The whole time Little Women’s world of characters were playing their hearts out in their 19th-century Massachusetts, a disco ball waited patiently near the top of the theater’s ceiling. I assumed it was a permanent fixture from other Unitarian Society events and wouldn’t have a role in the play. I was wrong.
In one scene, when snow falls over the girls’ town, twinkling snowflakes suddenly appeared over every row of the audience. Lights had started to shine over the disco ball, providing shining little dots of “snow” for the show. What charmed me was not just the clever effect of falling snow, but also the fact that it was a disco ball that caused it.
Some may say that the magic of a performance is in what’s invisible, the strings and wires the audience cannot see. But for such a self-reflective story as Little Women, adapted as a musical and performed by a thespian group making a triumphant return to the stage after nine years, the magic is really in what we do see. And we get to be part of the effort.
