Little Women Makes Big Impression

A Review by Carol Kulminski

It’s fun. It’s entertaining. It’s creative from start to  finish.  Opening night for Little Women was  a sold-out success in every sense of the word.  Sasha Hagan masterfully plays songs from the Civil War era before the show and during  intermissions. The stage is outstanding and completely accomplishes the goal of director Robert Hall to “set the novel before you symbolically and literally in hopes that you too will feel her spirit” (speaking of author Louisa May Alcott).

Spirit does abound in the variety of characters and the two distinct casts that carry you through time.

The opening scene with drummer Christopher Ghazel and another talented violinist, Matthew Lasio-White, set the historical reference with familiar civil war songs.  Louisa May Alcott enters, played convincingly by Donna Laslo, and reappears with the beginning of each new act to help guide you through the  story. Then come the children.

Each girl takes her turn with fairly long monologues with confidence and great personality! Meg (Brigid Ehrmantraut), Jo (Claire Orser), “Sweet” Beth (Aliza Diepenbrock), and Amy (Claire Bishop Martin) interact with other in such a natural way you would think they were really sisters. With a young John Brooke played by Ray Doss and the comic antics of Matthew Laslo-White as Laurie, this scene is just pure fun!

Mimi Anderson, cast in the major role of Marmee, shows loving affection towards her girls and has the challenging role of interacting with all of the characters in all of the scenes. She makes the transitions with grace and bestows wonderful lessons that we all would do well to learn. Another character that appears in each scene is the amazing Deborah Sparks playing the crochety old Aunt March. You feel the energy when Deborah enters the stage and are held mesmerized by her role.

In the second scene, grown-up “little women” enter and now you are entertained with more serious dialogue and some very emotional scenes from Jo, played by Maria Massey, and the dying Beth (Clarabeth Smith), the lovesick young man, Laurie (Zak Knight), the not-so-popular union of Meg (Cara Russell) and John Brooke (Jared Grantham), the return of their ill father played by Frank Michels, and the romantic Professor Baer.

Moments of sadness, moments of wisdom, moments of amusement (Indy Zoeller has a charming German accent as Profesor Baer) bring you to the conclusion of the play where you are left with a happy ending and a reminder that “at the core of everything is love.” (Louisa May Alcott)

(Little Women plays at the Orcas Center this weekend, on Friday evening at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. It continues next weekend. Call 376-2281 or go to www.orcascenter.org.)