<\/strong>THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS
<\/strong>KXT on Broadway, December 13
<\/strong>Until December 23
<\/strong>Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
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Alan Bennett had not encountered Kenneth Grahame\u2019s The Wind in the Willows<\/em> as a child, and was deeply suspicious of dramatising it. Toad apart, he thought the characters muted, and besides, it incorporated horses, cars, trains and barges. He set about it, nonetheless, and came up with something rather clever.<\/p>\n By deepening and darkening Ratty, Mole, Toad and Badger and their interrelationships, what had been a series of episodes and escapades now had a through-line of tension, released by light comedy. Bennett took a children\u2019s story about animals in the English countryside, and made a play for adults \u2013 although children capable of sitting for two hours may well love it.<\/p>\n Toad (Michael Doris) in his beloved car \u2013 just two shiny red doors with wing mirrors.<\/span>Credit: <\/span> <\/cite><\/p>\n Its initial London staging was a design tour de force, courtesy of Mark Thompson and a large budget. Stacks On Theatre\u2019s director, James Raggatt, winds it back to a bare stage, and puts to work the oldest device in the theatrical toolbox: the audience\u2019s imagination.<\/p>\n Raggatt also plays Ratty with commendable flair. In fact, when his Ratty is combined with Elyse Phelan\u2019s Mole and Lachlan Stevenson\u2019s stentorian Badger, a problem results: Michael Doris\u2019 Toad can\u2019t quite trump them for charm \u2013 which Toad really needs to do for us to keep forgiving him. Doris amply creates the hedonistic six-year-old lurking inside Toad, but just misses the winning personality.<\/p>\n Much else is right. Six ensemble actors turn their hands to being everything from the river (with fabric) to a cart (two axles and four wheels) and a train (ingeniously depicted by driving-rods without wheels), while Toad\u2019s beloved car is just two shiny red doors with wing mirrors.<\/p>\n The weasels are cockney bovver-boy types, memorably led by Miranda Daughtry, and they share many of the laughs with Ross Walker\u2019s Albert the Horse, Bennett\u2019s particular creation, played with austere eastern European pessimism and a disdain for carrots.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n