Review: The Wizard of Oz is a polished pantomime from Ross Petty productions

Open this photo in gallery:

• Title: The Wizard of Oz: A Toto-ly Twistered Family Musical
• Written by: Matt Murray
• Genre: Pantomime
• Director: Tracey Flye
• Actors: Camille Eanga-Selenge, Michael de Rose, Sara-Jeanne Hosie
• Company: Ross Petty Productions
• Venue: Elgin Theatre
• City: Toronto
• Year: Runs to January 5, 2019

During the opening number of The Wizard of Oz on Wednesday night, I felt as if I’d been carried away by a twister for a moment – and briefly wondered if somehow I had landed in the wrong theatre.

Here was Dorothy (Camille Eanga-Selenge), who in this twist on L. Frank Baum’s classic tale is a business major living on Toronto’s Ossington Avenue, dancing with a group of happy hipsters and singing the classic Euro-disco song Born to be Alive.

But there had been no precurtain scene greeting children in the audience and no goofy meta-theatrical joke to start things off. Instead, we had jumped right away into a full-blown production number.

I checked my program, and its pun-filled subtitle confirmed I was, indeed, at A Toto-ly Twistered Family Musical. So, why did it feel as if I was at a straightforward jukebox musical rather than a Ross Petty pantomime?

For 23 years, actor and producer Petty has delivered Canadian shows riffing on the British Christmas panto tradition to Toronto family audiences.

Petty and his hired hands turn familiar fairy tales on their heads to appeal in direct ways to children (broad characters; song and dance; slapstick; booing the baddies); and in indirect ways, to adults (topical references; double entendres; a camp sense of humour; booing the baddies).

What is often most fun about a Petty panto is the sense that the performance could fracture at any moment – and the knowledge that it frequently will.

I’ve always loved the shows for the improv, the interactions with the audience, the bits where actors make each other break character with goofy jokes, and I’ve also enjoyed putting on my puritan pants and complaining afterward about one or two lines that I thought went too far for children.

By contrast, The Wizard of Oz, in its final preview performance at least, felt very slick and safe.

The script, by Matt Murray, is tighter and more coherent than it usually is – focusing on Dorothy and the gang’s attempts to stop the Wicked Witch Selphura (Sara-Jeanne Hosie) from accelerating global warming with the help of her deceased sister’s ruby slippers.

Open this photo in gallery:

Tracey Flye has directed the scenes at a snappy pace and choreographed the dance numbers with style and energy. The set and costumes by Cory Sincennes seem brighter and better designed than usual, and the colourful projections by Cameron Davis are truly enchanting.

The downside to all this is that this year’s show felt too locked down, with not enough room for the actors to play around. It’s a paradox, but I kept admiring the jokes Murray had written and thought they were the best they have been in years, and yet I actually laughed less than I usually do.

You know the general plot: Dorothy gets whisked away to Oz and follows a yellow-brick road with a Scarecrow (a charming Matt Nethersole), a Tin Man (Eric Craig) and a Lion (Daniel Williston) to see the wizard.

Here, our merry band are also accompanied by the good witch Sugarbum, who is played by Michael de Rose in a dress and wig that make him look like a giant strawberry ice-cream sundae. De Rose’s character is a cousin of Plumbum, the lewd, clumsy fairy godmother to all usually played by Dan Chameroy (who was busy cross-dressing under different circumstances until last week in the extended hit production of The Rocky Horror Show at the Stratford Festival).

I was amused by Sugarbum and all his lube-related banter with the Tin Man – but the character and performance is so modelled on Chameroy’s that it couldn’t help but feel like a tamer imitation.

As the Lion, Williston is loosest on stage and therefore was the king of the panto to me, though Craig was best at delivering the scripted zingers in a way that genuinely made me laugh. (A line about Emerald City being the second most impressive dispensary he’d ever seen won the night.)

As the Wicked Witch, Hosie, a veteran musical-theatre performer, is the character you’re supposed to boo, but her rendition of Donna Summer’s Hot Stuff – the song list is heavy on disco this year – is hot enough that the audience applauded at the end.

I hate to say it, but I missed Petty’s sloppy, self-indulgent and absolutely hilarious performances as the bad guy or gal.

Eddie Glen, perennial henchman with a heart of gold, is excellent as usual as the Wicked Witch’s sidekick – but even he felt as if he’d been told to pick up the pace, keep things moving.

The two children I brought with me, of course, did not have their enjoyment encumbered by nostalgia for the older, more shambolic style.

Eight-year-old Plum suggested I give The Wizard of Oz five stars. When I told her that The Globe and Mail ranked out of four, she rolled her eyes: “I know. I want to give it five out of four stars.”

Three scenes in, five-year-old Teddy told me: “I already know I like this. You can put that in your newspaper.” On the way home, however, he was tired and said, “that felt like it was two hours.” (It was, in fact, two hours long.)

One of the children also complained that Toto, a chihuahua named Olive, could have been cuter. But they didn’t want to do so under their name, because it was a mean thing to say.