Chance Theater takes full advantage of Big Fish The Musical’s newly revised “small cast edition” to transform an overblown Broadway flop into an intimate gem that could touch even a heart of stone.

Not that there wasn’t already much to love when Big Fish made its big-stage West Coast debut a few years back beginning with as gorgeous an Andrew Lippa score as any musical theater could possibly wish for.

Based on the 2003 Tim Burton movie of the same name, Big Fish recounts the life—and the sky-high tall tales—of traveling salesman Edward Bloom (Jeff Lowe), whose days and weeks away from home are but one reason for a decade-long estrangement from his now adult son Will (Jared Price).

 Complicating matters for the about-to-wed Will is the conviction that the stories his father has told him of Dad’s Early Years are nothing more than the lies of a self-centered (and as we will quickly learn) now dying man.

Like Burton’s film (itself based on Daniel Wallace’s Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions), Big Fish The Musical brings Edward’s stories to fantastical life while simultaneously exploring a father-son relationship with a soon-approaching deadline on healing.

Movie fans will recognize a number of these tall tales despite the considerable tweaking they have undergone from screen to stage.

 There’s the Witch of Edward’s childhood (Rachel Oliveros Catalano), whose ability to predict precisely how a person will die gives Edward the courage to face danger with the knowledge that this is not “how it ends.”

There’s also Karl (John Carroll), the misunderstood giant who joins Edward on a journey that leads the mismatched duo to a circus run by pint-sized ringmaster Amos Calloway (Michael J. Isennock).

 Finally, there’s the beautiful Sandra Templeton (Laura M. Hathaway), first glimpsed at Amos’s traveling carnival and for whom Edward invests three years of unpaid circus labor—and a series of frustratingly vague monthly “clues”—for his boss to at last reveal Sandra’s name and whereabouts.

The rest, as they say, is history, though with a teller of tall tales like Edward doing the narrating, who’s to say how much is fact and how much is fiction?

Where Big Fish went astray on Broadway wasn’t so much in the cuts and changes book writer John August made in adapting his screenplay for the musical theater stage, though there are perhaps too many of them.

What really went wrong was director-choreographer Susan Stroman’s substitution of Broadway pizzazz for heart, most egregiously in a couple of Act Two production numbers (a silly comic book-style confrontation pitting Edward against a masked “Red Fang” and a fantasy Wild West “Showdown” between Edward and adult Will), both of which Big Fish’s “small cast edition” wisely leaves on the cutting room floor.

The result of these post-Broadway tweaks is an Orange County Premiere whose second act goes for the emotional jugular and in so doing soars.

A show-opening “Be The Hero” has Big Fish’s entire cast of characters casting animated shadow-puppet silhouettes on upstage walls, images that will remain a leitmotif of master director Oanh Nguyen’s production design concept, executed to tandem perfection by scenic designer Bradley Kaye and projection designer Nick Santiago.

 Bradley Lock’s multitude of costumes (and Megan Hill’s myriad props) both realistic and fantastical, a couple of ingenious Matthew Aldwin McGee puppet confections transforming Carroll into storybook giant and Isennock into howling werewolf, and Masako Tobaru’s vibrant lighting are splendid as well. (Design highlights include Lock’s dancing trees and Big Top wear, and the most glorious Act One grand finale any “Daffodils” lover could wish for.)

Add to this Kelly Todd’s storytelling-propelling choreography, Robyn Manion’s expert musical direction, the show’s full-bodied six-piece orchestra*, and Ryan Brodkin’s pitch-perfect sound design and it’s hard to imagine a better looking or sounding Big Fish scaled down to 99-seat theater proportions.

Lowe’s terrific three-ages-of-Edward lead performance anchors the production with Price’s deeply conflicted Will providing strong support, and when both of them reach Big Fish’s heartstrings-tugging “What’s Next” and “How It Ends,” expect quiet tears to turn to sobs.

 Vocally, the production belongs to Hathaway’s radiant Sandra (her gorgeous soprano in rare pop mode), Monika Peña’s lovely Josephine (following her sensational star turn in Violet), and Oliveros’s gorgeously “witchy” alto in “I Know What You Want.”

Carroll gives the towering Karl The Giant abundant heart, Isennock’s Amon Calloway is a salty delight, Mandy Foster’s Jenny Hill is sunlight personified, and Jason Brewer matches his adult counterparts every step of the way as Young Will.

 Matt Bolden (as Edward’s nemesis Don Price), Devin Collins (as Edward’s physician Dr. Bennett), Matt Takahashi (as town simpleton Zacky), and Sydney DeMaria and Lydia Margitza (as a pair of Alabama Lambs) provide top-notch support throughout.

Big Fish is dedicated to the memory of Courtny Greenough. Ellen Beizer is stage manager. Glenda Morgan Brown is dialect coach. Jessica Johnson is dramaturg. Aaron McGee is puppetry consultant/fabricator.

The most bewitching Chance Theater musical in years, and as emotionally satisfying a show as anyone could wish for, Big Fish is guaranteed to hold audiences in its spell from its magical start to its deeply emotional finish.

*Jimmy Beall, Curtis Humphrey, Kimmie Levin, Manion, Isabella Pepke, and Jorge Zuniga

Chance Theater, 5522 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills.
www.chancetheater.com

–Steven Stanley
July 15, 2018
Photos: Doug Catiller/True Image Studio

Tags: Andrew Lippa, Chance Theater, John August, Orange County Theater Review