Theatre 2025: Narnia @ Soulpepper

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (known as LWW) is the first book in a children’s fantasy series titled “Chronicles of Narnia” written by C.S. Lewis between 1949-1956.  Set in 1940 during WWII, the story deals with the four Pevensie siblings, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy (aged 13, 12, 10 and 8 respectively), who are evacuated from London to evade the German Blitz.  They are sent to live with an old professor in a Victorian manor in the English countryside.  During their stay, first Lucy, then Edmund and finally all four siblings discover a magical passage through the back of a wardrobe leading them to the mystical land of Narnia, which is full of talking animals and mythical creatures including fauns, centaurs, dwarves, giants, tree spirits and water nymphs.  Under the control of the wicked White Witch, Narnia is stuck in perpetual winter.  The children are met by Mr. and Mrs. Beaver who greet them as Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve and reveal that the witch fears them because the four are prophesized to defeat her with the assistance of Aslan, a great and powerful lion who is returning after a long absence.

On Lucy’s first visit to Narnia, she meets a faun, Mr. Tumnus, who is supposed to turn her over to the witch.  Instead, he shows her the way back home and is punished by being turned to stone.  When Edmund first finds Narnia, he encounters the witch and is initially lured into helping her with promises of power and the addictive magical treat “Turkish Delight”.  This makes him a traitor against his family and by invoking ancient laws of “Deep Magic”, the witch claims the right to kill all traitors.  Aslan offers to take the place of Edmund and is killed by the witch but is soon resurrected under an even “Deeper” magic.  Along with Aslan’s army, the Pevensies fight a vicious battle against the witch’s minions and eventually triumph, vanquishing the witch and freeing all the creatures that were turned to stone.  Spring returns and the four are crowned Kings and Queens of Narnia, ruling peacefully for many years into their adulthoods.  One day while out hunting, they come across the entrance leading to the wardrobe.  Stumbling back into their own world, they are children once again and discover that in this realm, no time has passed since they entered the wardrobe.

I read this book many years ago as a child, enjoying the fantastical adventures without recognizing all the religious themes imbedded throughout the story.  I did not remember much about the book when we watched Narnia, a joint Crow’s Theatre/Soulpepper musical production based mainly LWW with a few references to later books.  Experiencing the tale as an adult, the references to Christianity now seem so apparent.  Aslan is obviously a Jesus figure who dies for the sins of others and is resurrected, while the children are referenced as offsprings tracing back to Adam and Eve, the Witch could refer to Satan and Edmund’s temptation for Turkish Delight might allude to the “Original Sin”.

As is the tradition of Bad Hat Theatre, who developed the show, this rendition of LWW is presented as a musical. Songs composed by the actor Landon Doak, who plays Edmund, are added sporadically to the action. Actor-musicians play instruments on stage including violin, guitar, piano, accordion, bass, drums and other rhythm-making apparatus, often while in character and as part of the choreography during fight scenes.  It seems lately that more and more shows are using actor-musicians although it is not clear whether this is an artistic choice or a cost-savings decision?  Another trend that seems prevalent these days is to have the actors/musicians roam around on stage for an extended period of time prior to the start of the performance.  This was a bit confusing in this show since the jigs and reels being played evoked a Maritime kitchen party feel, which while entertaining, had nothing to do with the vibe of the show once it started.

The play makes a major plot change to the source material by making the four children not blood relatives but fellow orphaned evacuees.  This deviation allowed the concept of the “found family” to be highlighted, where bonds of love, loyalty and community span beyond blood ties.  The children come from different ethnicities (White, Black, Asian) and to further extend the ideas of diversity and inclusiveness to the LGBTQ communities, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver are now Mr. and Mr. Beaver. While the outfits of the children seem too modern for the 1940s setting, the elaborate costumes of the characters from Narnia are fitting, especially the luminous bejeweled robes and crown of the White Witch.

One artistic decision that I questioned was not transforming the stage more to represent the magic of Narnia.  The set was designed to represent the old Victorian manor and in particular, the room with the wardrobe whose doors opened up to reveal a bunch of coats hanging from the racks.  When the children crawled into the wardrobe and then emerged into “Narnia”, the only visual indication of this was some “snow” falling from above and a lamp post off to one side.  There was no backdrop depicting a winter wonderland with glistening trees, shimmering icicles and snow.  Throughout all the Narnia scenes, we stared at the original set of the mansion in the background.  A pair of moving stairs were pushed around to help choreograph scenes of traversing over terrain but it was difficult to conjure the enchantment of this mythical land without any visual cues.

In fact, it was the lobby of the Soulpepper Theatre that was decked out in a fashion closer to how I imagined Narnia should look like.  There were tinsels hanging from rafters to represent icicles, several large Christmas trees decorated with lights and bulbs, a tangle of interwoven frosted tree limbs covered with shards of ice within Narnia’s forest and a cool blue hue to reflect the cold winter enveloping the land.  There was even an entrance into the theatre with coats hanging from above to give you the impression of stepping through the wardrobe.  Perhaps this was to allow those who did not have tickets to the show to take part in the world of Narnia.  Too bad the ones who did watch did not get that extended experience on stage.