Little Women: Not Exactly the Book

A musical stage version of a classic book beloved by young adults for over a century is a daring challenge inherently difficult to do. Despite many adaptations for the stage and screen, none have succeeded in compressing into a short few hours the rich texture of character and detail that account for the enduring appeal of the book.

The incarnation performed by students at St. Raphael Academy Drama Club is a professional variant that was originally developed for Broadway with music by Kim Oler and lyrics by Alison Hubbard for use with a book by Alan Knee. Despite receiving some encouraging reviews in development, the Broadway producers decided to keep Knee’s book and replace the Oler-Hubbard score with music by Jason Howland and lyrics by Mindi Dickstein. The eventual Broadway version, intended to evoke period music from the 1860s and burdened by – I’m not making this up – an opera within the musical, was not exactly a disaster but proved about as exciting as watching grass grow on a Civil War battlefield. Mercifully, Oler and Hubbard enlisted Sean Hartley to write a more streamlined book to combine with their discarded score, and audiences at St. Raphael will benefit.

Unfortunately, the Oler-Hubbard score is very demanding to singers, often reaching Stephen Sondheim levels of difficulty without the accompanying genius and skill of Sondheim. The score is competent and workmanlike, but of 22 songs listed in the program none could be fairly called memorable. It is a credit to a high school drama program for taking this on, but few could do it justice. Aside from the music, however, the students of St. Raphael Academy do a good job of evoking the characters and atmosphere of the book. The live orchestra of Jonathan Audette (music director, piano), Jennifer Langevin (violin I), Lucy Atkinson (violin II), Caroline Herreo (viola), and Emily Johnston (cello) was excellent.

Louisa May Alcott practically invented the modern young adult novel with Little Women, published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869 although usually regarded as a single combined volume today. Based on her own family life, the substantially autobiographical novel tells of the March family of four daughters held together by their mother as their father goes off to serve in the American Civil War (1861-1865) and then returns. Alcott’s own alter ego, “Jo” (Sarah Dube), is the main character and second-oldest of the girls, and this stage version is framed by recounting her progress toward becoming a noted author, reminiscing through an old trunk full of memorabilia as vignettes from the book are replayed. Older sister “Meg” (Jennifer Sullivan) and younger sisters “Beth” (Sara Langlois) and “Amy” (Maddison Cocca) make up the familiar March household, along with their mother “Marmee” (Emily Darling) and their mostly absent father (Michael D’Ordine). The Laurence family headed by “Mr. Laurence” (Ryan Sutherland) are neighbors who provide eventual romantic interests for the girls, including young “Theodore ‘Laurie’ Laurence” (Jarell Gomes) and his tutor “John Brooke” (Jack Rigley). The girls’ “Aunt March” (Katherine Lynch) is constantly worried about their unconventional upbringing and permissive parenting. As Jo grows a bit older, her parents arrange for her to move to New York City to pursue her dream of writing, serving as governess to family friend “Mrs. Kirke” (CaraMia Costa) who runs a boarding house, and Jo becomes acquainted with tenant “Professor Fritz Bhaer” (Lifan Deng) who has come to America from Germany and encourages her writing. The action is helped by an ensemble (Raquel Brissette, Meghan Clarke, Gabrielle DaCunha, Grace Gomes, Felrette Greene, Kaleigh Poirier, Therese Wagner).

Much of the charm of Little Women is that the real Alcott family upon which it is based was by no means typical of the era, with father Bronson Alcott best described as one of the great American eccentrics (if not weirdos) of the age, earning a meager living as a Transcendalist religious minister and public intellectual, railing against the evil of slavery, and starting a utopian commune that quickly failed. Bronson founded a school and came under severe attack for his free-thinking on matters of religion, encouraging pupils to question whether miracles described in the Bible could really have happened. He structured his school as a democracy with student-run discipline instead of the physical beatings that were customary at the time, anticipating by nearly a century A.S. Neill’s experimental Summerhill School. Although none of this is the subject of Little Women, it is crucial to understanding its context.

A role on which the production stands or falls, Jo is played by Sarah Dube with considerable skill, emotion, expression and physicality. Jo is the epitome of the new kind of woman who breaks most of the rules of 19th century propriety: headstrong, quick to anger, clumsy, lacking any sense of style or fashion, and – most emphatically – determined not to marry so that she remains free to pursue a career. Almost all of the cast get their time singing solo, but Sara Langlois as the tragic Beth really rises to the call of the difficult music. Lifan Deng, playing the German-speaking Professor Bhaer who is not so good at English, compensates for that with effective stage presence. Maddison Cocca as Amy convincingly evolves her character from childishness to young womanhood, the most substantial change of any of them. Jarrell Gomes as Laurie, whom Jo describes as the brother she never had, similarly displays confidence and is at his best when wrestling with Jo, oblivious to the romantic complications ensuing.

Fans of the book will enjoy seeing its characters brought to life on stage, but this musical is very emphatically not the book.

Little Women, directed by Moira Costigan-Carraher, Joseph and Blanche Coutu Theater, St. Raphael Academy, 37 Maynard St, Pawtucket. Fri (12/4), Sat (12/5) 7:30pm, Sun (12/6) 2:00pm. Tickets: (401)723-8100 ext. 160 for reservations.
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