Gorgeously scored and emotionally impactful, Broadway’s Big Fish gets a terrific regional staging at Claremont’s Candlelight Pavilion, one of Inland Valley Repertory Theatre’s most successful big-cast musicals in years.

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 (Caleb Shaw), whose days and weeks away from home are but one reason for a decade-long estrangement from his now adult son Will (Gavin Juckette).

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 (Kristina Leopold Jarvis), 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 (Garret Smith), the misunderstood giant who joins Edward on a journey that leads the mismatched duo to a circus run by larger-than-life ringmaster Amos Calloway (Dani Angel Bustamante).

Finally, there’s the beautiful Sandra Templeton (Jaclyn Kelly Shaw), 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 the show’s 2015 revision wisely leaves on the cutting room floor.

The result of these post-Broadway tweaks (and the addition of Sandra’s celebratory “Magic In The Man” and Edward and Will’s father-vs.-son vocal duel “The Distance Between Us,” two of songwriter Andrew Lippa’s best) is an a musical whose second act goes for the emotional jugular and in so doing soars.

Director Frank Minano has taken the best of this “small cast edition” written for just a dozen actors and added another twenty-two more performers of diverse theatrical experience, an approach that might not work in a different show but here proves quite effective, surrounding Edward with the “villages” (both the small town where he grew into manhood and the circus that became his home when he set off in search of adventure) that it took to turn him into a man.

As the Southern gentleman in question, rising SoCal star Shaw delivers a performance of such charisma, power, and irrefutable charm (and acting chops to match his glorious tenor) that it’s easy to see why virtually everyone in the tall tale teller’s life is smitten, and if you think you’ll be able to resist sobs at Shaw’s heartstrings-tugging “What’s Next” and “How It Ends,” think again.

Shaw’s real-life leading lady makes for a radiant Sandra, with Juckette (a quietly commanding Will), Andrew Bar (a plucky Young Will), Lauren Bell (a warm-hearted Josephine), Bustamante (a wolf-howling Amos), Smith (a deep-voiced, sky-high Karl), Jamie Kaufman (a honey blonde Jenny Hill), Jarvis (a The Voice-ready Witch), and Hannah Naiditch (a seductive Girl In The Water) all doing topnotch work as well.

Adding to Big Fish’s community theater appeal are ensemble players Meghan Barton (Little Girl With Dog), Nickolas Beene (Young Edward), Candace Elder (Schoolteacher), Thomas Fisk (Don Price), Michael Gallo (Young Zacky Price), Megan Hill (Shepherd), Louis Johnson (Will’s Son), Seth Johnson (Hot Blooded Shotgun Toter), Dante Marenco (Young Don Price), Lauren Mayfield (Lamb Trio), Scott McDermott (Fisherman), Mia Mercado (Sharecropper), Abel Miramontes (Zacky Price), Gabrielle Richardson (Lamb Trio), Steve Siegel (Dr. Bennett), George Waters (Mayor), and youth ensemble members Lucca Beene, Allyssa Entz, Carolina Flores, Ashley Gallo, Ian Ho, Marley McAnich, Jenna Mills, and Paige Ouilette.

Yesenia Valverde has choreographed some graceful, athletic dance numbers, especially in Act One, and the entire ensemble sings splendidly under onstage orchestra* conductor Andrew Orbison’s expert musical direction.

The concurrently running Bright Star’s small-town Broadway National Tour set may well be the best fit to date for an IVRT Mark Mackenzie modification, Catherine Erickson’s multitude of period/circus/fantasy costumes and Caleb Shiba’s vibrant lighting design merit high marks too along with Kirklyn Robinson’s hair and wigs and Pat Trimmer’s properties, and Nick Galvan provides an expert sound design.

Hope Kaufman is assistant director. Lauren Jimenez is stage manager. Bobby Collins is production manager.

Grand in its Act One scale and every bit as powerful in its Act Two intimacy, IVRT’s Big Fish provides a fine, family-friendly weeknight alternative to mid-week at-home entertainment. Expect to be wiping away tears through your cheers.

*Lila Crosswhite, Austin Farmer, Brian Kukan, Ashley Ng, Orbison, Max Wagner

Inland Valley Repertory Theatre at Candlelight Pavilion, 455 W. Foothill Blvd., Claremont.
www.IVRT.org

–Steven Stanley
April 24, 2019
Photos: DawnEllen Ferry

Tags: Andrew Lippa, Inland Valley Repertory Theatre, John August, Los Angeles Theater Review