Review: AMELIE at Center Stage Theater

Out of the Box Theatre Company presents Amélie now playing at Center Stage, a musical based on the French film of the same name. The musical follows effervescent spirit and plot of the director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's 2001 film.

We meet Amélie as a young girl (played on alternating performances by Ember Retter and Hattie Ugoretz), whose parents keep her sheltered at home with only a goldfish named "Fluffy" for a playmate. When we first see her surrounded by a large picture frame wearing a red dress, she pulls our visual focus, alerting us that she is both the subject of the story and its principal agent. Actress Ember Retter's singing and acting as young Amélie was delightfully engaging: her plaintive isolation was touching without being the least bit twee.

The production concept casts a child-like sense of make-believe over its story. It makes imaginative use of puppetry, underscoring fairytale-like tone of the piece. The puppets, intricately fashioned by the multi-talented designer and choreographer Christina McCarthy, animate the fantastical ideas that swirl in Amélie's imagination. In one captivating number, "Goodbye Amélie," a puppet of Elton John (played by Willie Simpson, whom we do not see enough of on the Santa Barbara stages) serenades Amélie (Samantha Eve, who also directed the production). He inspires her to do good deeds around the city of Paris, just like his deceased friend, Lady Diana.

This production features a quintet of live musicians who produce a full and rich sound that supports the vocals. The individual songs are as whimsical as the entire story with titles like "Sister's Pickle," "There's No Place Like Gnome," and "A Better Haircut."

As the plot develops, Amélie takes further risks, exposing herself to the hurt and rejection of a life lived amongst others. She delights in zooming across the city like a character from The Third Man. She matches up couples; returns lost treasure and shines a light on a talented, but obscure poet. Most of the cast of thirteen performers play multiple characters, convincingly carrying off their swift shifts of personae. When Amélie falls in love with an equally eccentric Parisian, Nino (Nikko Arce), who collects discarded photo booth portraits, she needs to assert herself into a world in which she has remained a cautious observer. Check it out and see how the French gamine fares in this fanciful frolic.