The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘Winn Dixie’ dogged by lack of real interaction
Fortythree years ago, Goodspeed Musicals introduced an immortal pair of strays, an orphan girl and dog, to the musical theater world with “Annie.” Goodspeed sets up another round with “Because of Winn Dixie,” starring yet another female adolescent and her obedient pooch who find their way in a small Florida community full of strays.
Yet that is all the two musicals have in common. “Because of Winn Dixie,” which continues through Sept. 5 at Goodspeed Opera House, lacks the charm, relative wit and action of its orphaned, redheaded predecessor. “Because of Winn Dixie” is as nondramatic as “Annie” is corny, infectious and cute.
Duncan Sheik (music and lyrics) and Nell Benjamin (book), adapting “Because of Winn Dixie” from Kate DiCamillo’s 2000 novel of the same name, have, along with director John Rando, gone long on cuteness at the expense of story.
Opal ( Josie Todd) and her father, simply named Preacher ( J. Robert Spence) arrive at a new town on the heels of Opal’s mother’s hasty and crushing departure. They rent a neglected abode in a trailer park near the humble church where Preacher presides over a congregation peopled with heartache and loneliness that pervade the entire community.
Enter Winn Dixie, played by Bowdie, a real stray rescued by stage animal whisperer Bill Berloni, animal director extraordinaire, who cut his canines on Annie’s Sandy during the dog days of summer 1976. Bowdie, a large, lovable mix of poodle and the best parts of other breeds, is the play’s most obvious stray who brings all of the wounded hearts together to shed their tears, fears and suspicions so they can understand each other and become a genuine community.
Since nothing melts hearts as warmly as an expertly trained dog, Bowdie’s Dixie is a lead character, unlike Annie’s Sandy, whose walkons are few and far between Annie and
Warbucks’ tender scene1s. “Because of Winn Dixie” literally opens and closes on the dog’s image, and its presence is constant throughout, save his bolting in act two during a climactic storm. Midway through the first act, the device wears thin. Yet one realizes that it’s Dixie or nothing. The musical’s lack of real characters and external conflict means without the dog, there is no show.
This is plainly evident from the beginning. The first three songs, Opal’s “Strays,” Preacher’s “Offer It Up” and Opal’s “Awoo” (as in a dog’s plaintive howl at the moon) are pure exposition served up as pop ballads, like nearly all of the score’s 17 numbers. Even “Bottle Tree Blues,” sung by outcast
Gloria, is a gardenvariety, lowkey song that barely scratches the surface of Roz Ryan’s vocal prowess.
With everyone singing their back story or about other offstage characters, one yearns for active scenes with characters negotiating with other characters facetoface, as when Jeanne (Kacie Sheik), a single mom with kids around Opal’s age, calls on Preacher at home to woo him, ostensibly with her hardluck story and a warm homemade dish. However tamely the two characters express their need for love and companionship, it’s a high point of the show. At least they’re talking and singing to the characters they face: together they create sorely need tension.
As if doubting their material, the musical’s creators insert cute business for our
canine hero to obfuscate their show’s flaccidity, ranging from the expected handshake to featuring the dog in the second act, running solo on a treadmill through a dreaded thunderstorm. Dixie jumps the shark.
What’s so disappointing is that all of the leisurely charm of DiCamillo’s book and Wayne Wang’s 2005
film starring AnnaSophia Robb and Jeff Daniels somehow escapes this musical. One expects creators as accomplished as Sheik (whose score for “Spring Awakening” is skillful and heartfelt), Benjamin and Rando to provide at least as much genuine characterization and story, if not reveal something freshly vital about the story to their audience.
“Because of Winn Dixie” seems a missed oppor
tunity to transform this quaint, family story into an inspiring musical, given the success of the book and the film. How such a promising combination of talented theater makers collaborating on such potentially rich source material misfire proves just how difficult it is to create a good musical theater piece.