Toad of Toad Hall

A.A. Milne must have slept ever so peacefully. Probably no one in the past 200 years had a tamer sense of evil. The meanest creatures he could conceive of were the stoats, ferrets and weasels he put on stage in a dramatic adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. And they're absolutely adorable.

The tale tells of the "conceited, but nice" Mr. Toad whose penchant for motorcars and accidents lands him in jail for twenty years. However, thank God, he escapes and with the solicitous aid of his friends Badger, Waterrat and Mole is resorted to the lordship of his ancestral Toad Hall.

The story of course oozes whimsy. The broader humor of Larry Gage's Lowell House production comes across fresh and funny. Toad (John Sansone), who regrettably is far too thin for a toad, bounces around the stage, bubbling, buzzing and boop-booping his phonic fantasies of motoring. Water-rat (David Baughan) and Mole (Carla Barringer) playfully "mess around the river" while a chorus of small, furry animals endears itself.

Surprisingly enough for a House production, it is the technical side of the show which does most to sustain the humor. Suzy Colgate's makeup is animalian without being grotesque. Toad's mouth and eyes are precisely that (though some credit must be given to the natural bent of Sansone's mouth); evil animals properly wear black masks. Electa Kane's costume are rich, correct (though her triumph--a weasel disguised as a notebook-paper-eared hare--is rightfully neither) and show off brightly under Steve Nightingale's clean, clear lighting which even does wonders for the slightly unsettling coloration of the overly chunky set.

Funny though the show is, it grates in spots. The best moments are hectic. The production lacks the quiet grace which is necessary to add a little beauty and rhythm to the show.

The problem is mostly one of simple technique. The director and cast have overlooked a few of the basics. With the exception of Miss Barringer, none of the major characters projects his voice. Instead they strain. As a result everyone has a burr in his voice, and the cumulative hoarseness is annoying. Sansone's falsetto "boop-boop's" are a refreshingly clear contrast to the rusty voice of Badger, Bill Sinkford. But a "boop-boop" only lasts a second.

The cast's movements are also a bit too tense and rigid. Even a Toad can be graceful. But Sansone isn't. Some of the scenes between the natty, restrained Water-rat and the eager, gliding Mole are pleasantly graceful; in smaller parts, Phillipa Lord as Phoebe and Dan Smith and Bob Gage as a horse and his rear end are funny without obviously pushing for laughs.

The show's most disturbing gracelessness is Director Gage's blocking. Given a spacious stage, fine lighting and colorful costumes he seems to have taken care to crowd bodies in small spaces and to compose lopsided stage pictures. In lieu of pacing riot scenes--the court-room scene and Toad's return to Toad Hall -- Gage throws his entire cast together for ten-second lumps of chaos, the quickest starting and fastest ending mob actions you've ever seen.

Only once has Gage used his eye effectively: when the four lead animals, carrying candles, slink through an underground passage in front of a banquet table draped with silhouetted ferrets, stoats and weasels in tableau.

But theatrical grace is hard to come by at Harvard; its omission in the Lowell production is not a mortal sin. And one touch in Toad of Toad Hall would seem to show that God may be smiling on the play. When Mole enters Badger's digs she myopically surveys the huge Lowell House chandelier and murmurs an impressed, "Oh I say," After an infinitude of blithely ignorant House productions it is good to see a cast aware that a couple of tons of glass and wire may come plummeting down on them any minute.