Mercury accentuates the positive in ‘Disney’s My Son Pinocchio’

Director Pierre-Jacques Brault is at his best when he finds the essence of a story and simplifies the storytelling to reveal it.

That is exactly what he does with Mercury Theatre’s production of “Disney’s My Son Pinocchio.”

The musical, written by David Stern, is a reimagining of the 1940 Walt Disney animated classic with new songs by Grammy Award-winning songwriter Stephen Schwartz added to the film’s memorable “When You Wish Upon a Star,” “I’ve Got No Strings,” “Give a Little Whistle” and others

by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington.

The story revolves around a living puppet built by a childless toymaker who, with a blue fairy as his guide and a cricket as his conscience, attempts to prove himself worthy of becoming a real boy.

The origin of the story can be found in the Italian children’s novel “The Adventures of Pinocchio: The Story of a Puppet,” written by Carlo Collodi in 1883, which is significantly darker than what Disney had in mind.

The novel has the puppet reject the adoring father figure who created him, let down the goodhearted fairy and ignore the wise counsel of the cricket.

Pinocchio ends up in the hands of his enemies, the Fox and the Cat, who bind his arms, pass a noose around his throat and hang him from the branch of an oak tree.

“Disney’s My Son Pinocchio” foregoes the whole hanging thing, but it does go a bit darker than the animated film, including a song titled “Pinocchio’s Nightmare.”

It is this darkness that Brault unceremoniously disregards, choosing instead to embrace the Disneyesque essence of the work and accentuate the positive in this production.

He does this by casting the play’s authority figures — toymaker Geppetto (Jonathan Bova), gypsy puppet master Stromboli (Brian Marshall), sinister ruler of Pleasure Island (also Marshall) and Jiminy Cricket (Kelly Monaghan) — with larger-than-life carnival puppets, who are voiced by these very talented onstage actors.

The puppets are designed by Vito Leanza to be significantly less scary and less serious on the stage then they appear on the page. They are also more cumbersome to move than live performers, which tends to slow down and limit the play’s action, resulting in many moments of stationary talking.

This is more than made up for by the featured characters played by actual actors, including Pinocchio (a wonderfully child-like Bill Wetherbee), the Blue Fairy (a delightful Claudia Zalevsky) and the Fox (a deliciously manipulative Brian Marshall), who is constantly leading Pinocchio astray.

As is his tendency and greatest strength, Brault simplifies the storytelling by staging the play within Nicholas Thornburg’s minimalist scenic design.

The show opens with an empty stage save for a black curtain in the rear, five tall wooden ladders that soon serve to represent locations and support a smattering of scenery, and lighting design by Michael Jarett.

Filling the stage is a charming ensemble of a dozen young men and women who play puppets, school children and the lost boys of Pleasure Island, hold wooden ribs to represent the belly of the whale that swallows Geppetto and Pinocchio and help manipulate the arms of the carnival puppets.

They do this while energetically performing Brault’s playful choreography, providing backup vocals to most songs and finding rich harmonies whenever the familiar strains of “When You Wish Upon a Star” surface throughout the show courtesy of a fine fivepiece band under Eddie Carney’s direction.

Katelyn Jackson’s costumes — including the primary-colored outfit adorned by Pinocchio, a gorgeous blue gown worn by the fairy and the wood-grain leotards worn by players while portraying puppets — are clever and add another layer of fun fantasy to a production chock-full of it.

“Disney’s My Son Pinocchio” is family fare for sure.

Mercury’s imaginative rendition is especially so and, as such, makes for an entertaining alternative to the more adult take on the classic Cinderella story, “Soho Cinders,” which is playing in repertory.