The Village's "Anne of Green Gables" Hits the Eastside for the Holidays

Suzy Hunt as Marilla, Kasey Nusbickel as Anne and Dennis Bateman as Matthew in Village Theatre's Anne of Green Gables (Photo: John Pai)

For the holidays and beyond, Village Theatre offers a sweet, well-cast, new musical production of Anne of Green Gables (thru Jan. 2 at the Francis J. Gaudette Theatre in Issaquah and the Everett Performing Arts Center Jan. 7-30; tickets $20-$60). While it won't change your life, it's further illustration that Village does what it does exceedingly well: Create and deliver solid musical theatre pieces that will live beyond their Village Theatre run. This is not a theatre that would give us The Addams Family. 

Based on--and following closely--Lucy Maud Montgomery's beloved book, Anne... is the story of Anne Shirley, a red-haired, 12-year-old orphan girl who arrives in the farming village of Avonlea on Canada's Prince Edward Island to live with bachelor farmer Matthew Cuthbert and his bachelorette sister Marilla.

Played by Dennis Bateman (doing a pretty good Hal Holbrooke) and veteran Seattle actor Suzy Hunt, the Cuthberts are surprised to find that the orphanage has delivered a girl instead of the boy they were looking for to help around the farm. Matthew is taken with Anne and wants to keep her. Practical Marilla isn't sure and keeps Anne on probation for a while. Even if you haven't read the book, you can likely guess how it all turns out. 

As the title character, 30-year-old Kasey Nusbickel sings beautifully and does an credible job of growing the character from 12 to 17. She gets Anne's impetuousness and earnestness just right. Even in the scenes where Anne goes for the overly dramatic ("The Solemn Apology"), Nusbickel resists the temptation to take it too over the top. It's in her touching account of her life before Avonlea ("No One to Want Me") that we get the full sense of her vocal and emotional range. 

It is Suzy Hunt's Marilla, however, that is the most memorable performance. She has the same sort of gravitas that Megan Cole brings to the Rep's Three Tall Women--and the ability to make you feel her presence in the world of the play even when she's not on stage. That, my friends, takes acting chops. Her not-so-warm-and-fuzzy relationship with Anne is the central one of this musical, and Hunt allows us to see Marilla slowly letting Anne in without being obvious about it. More an actor then a singer, Hunt sings the role with enough conviction to make you forgive her that.

The ensemble cast is solid and sings well, especially the last song of the show, "The Bend in the Road." What doesn't quite work musically is when Janet Yates Vogt and Mark Friedman, who together wrote the book, music and lyrics for Anne, have the characters sing over each other ("What a Fix"). What is intended as a vehicle to show the interior thoughts of multiple characters just comes out mushy. Their attempts at patter song ("Positively Providential") are best left to G&S. 

Not too surprisingly, the red-haired 14-year-old girl with me loved this completely family-friendly show and identified easily with Nusbickel's headstrong Anne. Those of us who are, ahem, a bit older can better identify with the Cuthberts, who are faced with what they think is a mistake and, over time, realize it's what they wanted all along.