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Now the Globe presents a new Seuss musical: The Old Vic\u2019s 2015 version of \u201cThe Lorax,\u201d based on the book, adapted for the stage by Scottish dramatist David Greig and boasting a score by Charlie Fink. \u201cDr. Seuss\u2019 The Lorax\u201d is in a dual U.S. premiere through Aug. 12 on The Old Globe\u2019s Shiley Stage, coming here after a run at Minneapolis\u2019 Children\u2019s Theatre.<\/p>\n
The story has the expected wildly inventive Seussian characters, but the message is simple: the environment needs and deserves protection from encroachment and ruination by rampant capitalist greed. Sound too serious (and timely) to be funny? Hang on, this is Dr. Seuss.<\/p>\n
The show is a feast for the eyes, thanks to Rob Howell, doing double duty as set and costume designer. It opens in a gray area \u201cat the far end of town where the Grickle Grass grows.\u201d Here we\u2019ll find the house of the \u201conce-happy Once-ler\u201d \u2014 a very high, thin, rectangular wood-look column, aging badly. The Once-ler lives grumpily all alone in the Lerkim at the top.<\/p>\n You see, years before he\u2019d been essentially pushed out of his poverty-stricken family (who wanted to rent out his bedroom) and sent out into the world to make his own way.<\/p>\n When a visitor asks if he would tell the story of what happened to the Lorax, the Once-ler immediately barks \u201cNo,\u201d but is bribed into it. But he won\u2019t come down: he drops his Whispa-Ma-Phone, a long line with an old-fashioned ear trumpet that the listener puts to his ear.<\/p>\n Then the Once-ler launches into the story of a place that once was paradise, with four-legged animals like Bar-ba-loots (they look like red bears here) and birds like the Swomee Swans, even Humming-Fish in the pond.<\/p>\n But it was the abundant Truffula trees that fascinated the Once-ler. Tall and thin they were, with brightly colored tufts. \u201cThe touch of their tufts was much softer than silk\/And they had the sweet smell of fresh butterfly milk,\u201d he reports. And the Bar-ba-loots feasted on the delicious fruits of the Truffula trees.<\/p>\n Feeling the silky softness of a Truffula tuft gave the Once-ler a brilliant marketing idea. He cut down a Truffula tree or two, gathered the tufts and knitted them into a \u201cthneed,\u201d a sort of all-purpose thing that might be a shirt or a sock or a glove. It\u2019s a \u201csomething-that-all-people-need,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But when he\u2019d cut that tree down, the Lorax (a four-legged orange puppet with a bright yellow mustache, manipulated and voiced by three actors) \u2014 appeared, wanting to know why the tree had been cut down. \u201cI speak for the trees,\u201d says the Lorax sternly (and wonderfully voiced and sung by H. Adam Harris).<\/p>\n This sets up a bit of a feud, as the Once-ler brings his whole family to work in his new thneed mill. Soon there are no more Truffula trees. Fish and animals, missing their food source, leave. And so \u2014 with no more trees to protect \u2014 does the Lorax.<\/p>\n Steven Epp\u2019s Once-ler is almost likable \u2014 at least until he becomes a greedy CEO, willing to hack those trees until there\u2019s nothing left.<\/p>\n The score by Charlie Fink (once-frontman of the indie-rock band Noah and the Whale) runs the gamut from political protest to Motown (with a great Supremes-like mashup) to hot jazz to electro-pop.<\/p>\n This show has it all: the style kids will love and a message parents will appreciate, along with terrific costumes, good songs, even a sing-along encore. Who knows, maybe it\u2019s the start of a new tradition.<\/p>\n![\"Speaking](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/thelorax-10_print.jpg\")
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Is that the end of Truffula trees? And paradise? Perhaps. Unless…<\/p>\n