Does the world get smaller as our ability to circumnavigate it gets faster?
The question fascinated prognosticators in the 1870s as much as it does in the Internet era.
Author Jules Verne envisioned submarines and moon rockets and, yes, even globe-traversing hot-air balloons (just not in “Around the World in Eighty Days”).
Inspired by the opening of the Suez Canal and railroads in America and India, Verne posited the greatest of literary bets: Could a man circumnavigate the globe in “just” 80 days? The resulting fictional serial-turned-novel so enthralled readers, bets were waged around the world as to its eventual outcome.
But there’s something quite at cross purposes in criss-crossing the globe by the fastest means possible, with every step timed to the minute. That’s antithetical to the leisurely joy of travel itself. But “Around the World in Eighty Days,” a refreshing departure for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, is as much about the man as his mission.
That man is Phileas Fogg (an amiably straightforward Sam Sandoe). Fogg is a creature of habit and routine, a decent but solitary man of mathematics whose lonely heart pumps with the calculation of a timepiece.
Time is a leading character in Verne’s masterpiece, which leaps through the years and onto the stage with all its wonder and whimsy intact. The wisdom of Mark Brown’s faithful adaptation and the sheer joy of director Philip Sneed’s fun (if a bit under-rehearsed) staging, is how the magnitude of this epic voyage is set against the sheer simplicity of its presentation.
Theater at its best relies on the transformative power of the actor and the potency of the audience’s imagination. With only a few props, we fully experience a typhoon, a thwarted jungle sacrifice, an assault on a frontier train. This is the best bedtime story ever.
The wonder starts with Andrea Bechert’s whimsical set, dominated by a world map that incrementally lights up like a holiday string to indicate distance traveled. And who needs an actual 6-ton elephant when a mound of luggage on wheels can be simply, wondrously transformed into the beast – bamboo fans serving nicely as Dumbo ears, a hanging lantern as its elongated trunk.
Clocks and miniaturized trinkets line the top of the stage, each representing a transportation mode such as a ship, sled, train and bicycle.
Sneed’s jovial company of five imbues the tale with a wonderful spirit. Matthew Mueller is magnificent as Fogg’s French servant Passepartout, a lithe acrobat who combines physical grace with impeccable comic timing. He’s part Moliere, part Chaplain, part Peter Sellers; a minstrel, gymnast, fireman and – my new favorite word – a “funambulist.” He’s a clown from the great stage traditions.
He also has playful fun with the versatile Elgin Kelley as Detective Fix, the ethical investigator (made female here) hot on the trail of Fogg, whom she wrongly takes for a bank robber. She’s Javert to Fogg’s Valjean ( “Les Miserables”).
Most sweetly, “Detecamafix,” as Passepartout calls her, is dead wrong about everything from start to finish. If only there was a love connection.
By my count, the quintet portray 32 characters, with the bulk of the work falling to Randy Moore, who plays 16. He’s at his best as a frontier American gunslinger, but I wish he’d take a cue from Mueller and take a full-on leap into abandon.
At its wonderful heart, this voyage is an emotional journey culminating in Fogg’s discovery that the mantra that’s kept him alive lo these many miles (“The unforeseen does not exist”) – is wrong indeed. Fogg does not foresee the love of Aouda (a wonderful Jamie Ann Romero), the doomed widow his servant rescues from death. In accepting love, Fogg is transformed from machine into man.
What’s so inspired about this story – and this staging – is how time drives Fogg, and every second of the play, and yet it is his failure to factor in international time changes that actually wins him his bet.
What would make Sneed’s solid staging even better is more of what’s already good about it – more free-spiritedness, more spontaneity. They should quicken the pace and more fully exploit the contemporary pop-culture jokes, such as a great nod to John Lennon. That should come in time.
We hear great things about the upcoming “A Servant of Two Masters,” but “Eighty Days” could be the first breakout of the festival – a guaranteed hit for anyone over 12.
But please leave anyone younger at home. The restless kiddies nearly went all “Lord of the Flies” on us opening night. I thought we might be in more danger than Phileas Fogg.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
“Around the World in Eighty Days”
COMEDY | Colorado Shakespeare Festival | Written by Jules Verne, adapted by Mark Brown | Directed by Philip Sneed | Starring Sam Sandoe, Matthew Mueller, Randy Moore, Elgin Kelley and Jamie Ann Romero | THROUGH AUG. 18 | University of Colorado mainstage theater, Boulder | 7:30 p.m. today through Sunday, dates then vary | 2 hours, 30 minutes | $5-$38 | 303-492-0554,
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COLORADO THEATRE GUILD’S HENRY AWARDS The biggest party of the year in local theater is Monday at the Aurora Fox – 20 awards and lots of performances. It looks to be a big night for Boulder’s Dinner Theatre, which leads the way with 20 nominations, 13 for “Ragtime.” Cocktails at 6 p.m., awards at 7 p.m. 9900 E. Colfax Ave. $18-$25 (303-778-7724).
“A SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS” The Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s eclectic 50th season continues with Saturday’s opening of Carlo Goldoni’s zesty and zany comedy, adapted by Colorado native Connie Congdon. 8:30 p.m. Saturday; dates then vary through Aug. 17 at the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre at the University of Colorado-Boulder. $5-$38 (303-492-0554,).
“JOHN & JEN” Fort Collins’ Nonesuch is buffering its one of three area stagings of “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change,” with this lesser- known chamber musical at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesdays and Sunday nights through. It’s a powerful tale of a Jen and her two Johns: the husband killed in Viet Nam and her son, his namesake. 216 Pine St., Fort Collins. $16-$20 (970-224-0444 or.
–John Moore
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
RUNNING LINES WITH … CHARLIE PACKARD: The Colorado Theatre Guild president, who’s up for four Henry Awards on Monday night, talks about the awards, and the state of Colorado theater. listen at.
