
Provincial minds can overrate their own marginal distinctions, but Islanders have the hard data to prove Anne's more than a local obsession. The provincial population is about 140,000 but 3.3 million people have seen the musical. Summertime on the Island sees a flood of Japanese tourists, mostly female, many wearing to dress up in frocks and wear braided red-haired wigs as an ode to their heroine. Anne has turned much of the province into a Victorian-era theme park, which Islanders resent, but it generates lots of cash, which we like, a lot.
At the opening of Anne of Green Gables - The Musical at Toronto's Elgin Theatre, P.E.I.'s Minister of Communities, Cultural Affairs and Labour was on hand for opening remarks. Carolyn Bertram was a total charmer, but the effect was to turn the whole show into a living, breathing tourism advertisement. One suspected the P.E.I. government might have underwritten Dancap's partnership with the Charlottetown Festival. Liked the sets? See them rendered in water, soil and sand as you drive from Cavendish to Brackley Beach! Liked the picnic scene? Try Cow's handmade ice cream next time you're in Charlottetown!
As a critic, you have to push aside nostalgia in order to set the script against the expectations of nowadays, the acting/directing against past productions. Though the musical has been tinkered with over the years, the current incarnation is a back-to-its-roots effort, with the original 1960s sets and choreography. Does that make it a museum piece or is it an artistic decision that has some contemporary resonance?
It's been at least 15 years since I last saw Anne of Green Gables and this time I was surprised by its imperial themes, particularly the strange school pageant where depictions of Eskimos and Indians flirt with racism. I had forgotten the cavalier treatment of teen pregnancy--treated with more levity than, say, school teasing. I had remembered Anne and Diana's platonic love song "Kindred Spirits"--it's the name of a fan magazine. But I had forgotten that it was the visit to the horrible Mrs. Blewett--we know she's horrible because she doesn't hang her laundry to dry sorted by colour and size--that made Marilla change her mind about keeping Anne. It's a funny scene, but there's no song in it and the Blewett character doesn't recur, so it didn't penetrate into my psyche. But the moment I saw the laundry, I knew exactly what was coming. Mrs. Blewett was there in my brain whether I knew it or not.
I can say this about the current production: Amy Wallis is probably the best of the four Anne's I've seen. And I always get excited when they start the egg and spoon race which is, strangely, more thrilling than the three-legged race that precedes it. But I didn't cry when... you know who... you know whats. A ritual is supposed to provide satisfaction each time, but get one ingredient wrong and the spirits will ignore you.
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