BWW Reviews: Skylight's World Premiere THE SNOW DRAGON Casts Contemporary, Fantastical Spell

The mystical world of dragons and fantasy casts a thought provoking spell in Milwaukee this Spring. Skylight Music Theatre presents the magical World Premiere of The Snow Dragon in the Cabot Theatre with striking simplicity and stunning stage design, which reveals the startling world of child abuse.

World renowned Thai author and composer Somtow Sucharitkul transfers this delicate, usually kept secret subject to his opera based on his short story titled The Fallen Country. A personal encounter with someone who experienced abuse inpisred his world premiere to intermingle science fiction and fantasy tales. These dual genres allow Sucharitkul to explore two suffering main characters: Dora Marx, a frustrated school psychologist who has been treating 12-year old Billy Binder, a child beaten daily by his mother's live in boyfriend, Stark, also a surrogate father figure. Yet, the characters in The Snow Dragon suffer from his or her own pasts that freezes them in present reality.

Billy's mother Joan remains frozen in her own emotions towards Stark, helpless, until Dora and Billy combine forces in reality and the futuristic, fantasy world of the Snow Dragon named the Frozen Country. In this dream like place, Snow Dragon helps Billy navigate a world where no one feels any pain, their emotions numbed by cold, while the creature opens the way to Billy breaking the spell, the cycle, when anger and resentment can be channeled the beginning of healing, restoration for Billy, Dora and his mother.

A superlative cast breathes life into this contemporary opera where multiple worlds and wounds shatter under the emotional and physical pain. The astonishing Luke Brotherhood, a First Stage Theatre Academy student, sings Billy's emotions to carry the audience through this traumatic journey with performance ability well past his seventh grade years, unbelievable.

Supporting Brotherhood's Billy, the acclaimed Cassandra Black (Snow Dragon), a concerned Colleen Brooks (Dora Marx), and ethereal Erica Schuller (Princess/Joan) surround Billy with feminine power and protection through a range of magnificent arias and sensational stage personas. Each female character remains under the commanding rule of ringmaster/father figure Stark, a convincing Dan Kempson.

The simplicity of William Bole's scenic design draws on Asian traditions and Japanese theater techniques in contemporary, minimalistic splendor. A glorious transcendent snow dragon mastered by four puppeteers appears to float on stage. Costumes designed by Jason Orlenko shine in the second act, when the characters play out the final confrontation in the Frozen Country. Each designer and technician contributes to total suspension of disbelief transporting the audience between the two worlds. To accompany the production, Musical Director Viswa Subbaraman conducts a 15-piece orchestra so Sucharitkul's lyrical yet haunting melodies reflect horror noir music and Eastern melodies and all under the stage direction and vision of Matthew Ozawa.

Audiences need to let their imaginations patiently unfold witht Billy's, Dora's and the Snow Dragon's emotions through the Opera. A performance where the music annd story falls on their presence like the snow seen on stage, and then lingers. Child abuse affects one out of four children or persons in the United States, while America tallies some of the highest statistics regarding this atrocity in the industrialized world. Between four and seven children each day suffer from abuse or neglect. While physical abuse appears in the Snow Dragon, emotional and psychological trauma subtly underscores the other characters in the story.

At a talk back with composer Sucharitkul after Saturday night's performance, audience members were visibly moved. Subbaraman related that someone in the cast shed tears during each rehearsal, while on opening night, a man remained sitting in the audience alone after the performance. A victim of child abuse in his youth, the man revealed to oen of the staff when he lelft, Billy's triumph became his on that premiere evening, instead of revenge for his hurts, healing. appeared. Throughout the production's run, Skylight partners with several community organizations, including Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, for any persons interested in further information regarding abuse.

Before or after performances, audiences might enjoy reading the excellent educational guide to further understand the story or abusive behavior, the truth to childhood horror stories. This compelling although challenging production transports the audience to a story, a subject, most composers and theater companies hesitate to travel to. Only through supreme confidence can the theatre, as art form, go to emotional places where no one else dares, and in the journey soar to outstanding heights.

Skylight's dream-like The Snow Dragon, presents Milwaukee with unparalleled opportunities--to experience a fantastical world premiere, be introduced to a world class author/ composer and applaud this global cultural exchange. In doing so, they acknowledge and support art's, theater and opera, music's exceptional power to cast a magical, redemptive spell on these and any other real life tragedies.

Skylight Music Theatre presents the world premiere of The Snow Dragon with music and libretto by Somtow Sucharitjkul in the Cabot Theatre at the Broadway Theatre Center through March 29. For further information on pre-performance discussion, performance times and ticket information, or season tickets to the 2015-2016 performances, please call 414.291.7800 or www.skylighttmusictheatre.org

To post a comment, you must register and login.