The story about immortals is a nice family break from holiday fare
Somehow, I’d never gotten around to reading Tuck Everlasting (the 1975 book), or seen the 2002 movie. “But mom, you bought it for me,” protested my daughter. “Didn’t you read it?”
No, but now that I’ve seen the play, I’d like to.
The story is magical. Literally, in that it’s about a family that drinks from a magic spring and gains eternal life, but also in the more figurative sense. There’s a forest full of dancing … fairies? that serves as a backdrop for the story of a young girl who runs away from home looking for adventure and finds the eternally youthful Tuck family. Now playing at the Vintage Theatre in Aurora in a regional premiere directed by Michael O’Shea, this Tuck Everlasting is a fun, magical show for the whole family.
The story begins with the Tuck family drinking from the spring as they travel to their new home in New Hampshire in 1805, then quickly cuts to 1893, where young Winnie Foster is plotting to convince her mother to let her go to the fair that is coming to town. Winnie’s father has been dead for nearly a year, and she feels trapped in their home, stifled in her black mourning clothes.
When Winnie’s mother refuses, Winnie impulsively follows a toad into the forest and comes upon Jesse Tuck, forever 17 years old. Jesse warns her not to drink the water from the spring, but can’t resist taking her on a bit of an adventure. When the rest of his family discovers them, they kidnap Winnie and take her to their home in the woods while they decide what to do next.
They end up trusting her with their secret, and she learns that the Tuck family doesn’t age. Jesse suggests that Winnie return to her home the next day, but that she take a bottle from the spring to drink when she, too, turns 17. That way, they can travel the world together, forever young.
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Enter the villain
Meanwhile, the fair Winnie wants to attend is run by a sinister man in the yellow suit who knows about the Tucks. He has been scheming to find the source of their eternal youth and sell it for his own financial gain. In the second act, all the forces collide: the Tuck family, Winnie, the man in the yellow suit, and a constable who has been sent by Winnie’s desperate mother.
After all the action, Winnie is faced with a choice. Will she drink from the spring and join Jesse, or live a normal life?
I was fortunate in that my friend Jess and her two young children accompanied me, because this was, after all, a play marketed to children, featuring an 11-year-old girl as the main character. Would they like it? I couldn’t wait to find out.
Fiti is in fourth grade, and younger sister Lusi is in first. They definitely seemed engaged and interested. When the Tucks throw a bag over Winnie’s head, Lusi let out a muffled squeal. “I like this!,” she whispered. At intermission, she told me the best parts were when people were singing.
And they can sing. I was particularly impressed with Mae Tuck (Hannah Quinn), who has a challenging vocal role. My favorite performance, though, was that of Winnie. My showing featured the understudy, Hazel Kachline, a seventh grader at Denver School for the Arts who was absolutely fabulous. I found the other performances good too; those two were just the standouts.
The part I most enjoyed was the dancing and choreography, which really reveals the emotion in the story. Near the end, there is an interpretive dance that shows Winnie’s life, with various dancers depicting Winnie as a sweetheart, young mother, older mother, and old woman, with grandmother, then mother, then husband exiting her life. It had me in tears, although considering I’m a fairly recent widow who has lost a lot of people in my life, might not be all that hard. But still.
The kids’ reactions
After it was over, I asked the kids what they thought. Lusi liked the middle, she said. Fiti looked thoughtful and said that it kind of lost him in the second half. In the car on the way home, I thought, Of course it did. The first half is about a family that lives forever, a girl who runs away from home and finds adventure in the forest, and a sinister, creepy man in a yellow suit. The second basically asks questions and shows why living forever might not be as great as it sounds at first. And, it ends with an abstract dance that the kids definitely didn’t understand — although Fiti got it, once it was explained.
But isn’t this exactly why we should take children to the theater and present them with art? To expose them to abstract concepts, to present ideas they might not quite understand, but will someday. When you’re a child, you think The Sound of Music is about singing children and a captain who falls in love with a governess. Later, sitting in eighth-grade history class learning about pre-WWII European power dynamics, you realize there are things you already understand because you watched Captain Von Trapp tear up a Nazi flag. You might also understand a little more about the whole subplot with the baroness, because you’re old enough to get it.
When my parents took me to see Annie on Broadway over 40 years ago (with the original Annie!) I was too young to know what the Great Depression was. But I never forgot going to that theater. I still remember what I was wearing. And I was learning, too, I just didn’t realize it.
So I’d go, and take your kids, even if they are a little young for abstractions. They’ll like the singing and dancing, and who knows what understanding might follow later?
A beautiful, thoughtful review. Thank you so much for your insightful comments and your encouragement to see this show. I already have tickets, and am now looking forward to seeing it even more.
I’ve attended theatre performances all my life, but often don’t put much thought into the “under story.” I hadn’t planned to see this show, but your review entices me to see it and to bring some neighbor kids with me.