Coraline musical

We saw Coraline off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in Greenwich Village this evening.

It's been fascinating to see this little story in different clothing. First the early drafts, then the finished novel, then the stop-action animated 3-D movie this winter, and now the play.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coraline
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/129569-Coraline_Extends_Engagement_at_Off-Broadway%27s_Lucille_Lortel_Theatre

I had imagined the story as being not difficult to make into a movie, and very challenging to make into a play.

This musical is delightfully unorthodox, and the delightfully strange casting seems to have been aimed partly at putting excellent, versatile actors in the parts, happily without any regard whatever to type-casting for age, sex, or race. This musical is the telling of a story by a young girl, enhanced continually by skits and songs and inventive musical and stage business.

We had a plump geezerette playing a young girl -- and a very good job she did, too, with voice and mannerisms -- and the gross mismatch of age and form seems to release the imagination, so that what goes on in one's head is greater than the wonderfulness of the acting, music, and staging.

We had the male playwright as the "other mother" and several bit parts. A middle-aged man playing a woman, especially as the alter ego of a young woman who is also on stage is pleasantly jarring, and frees one to attend to the story, makes the staging more in the ancient traditions of drama, and frees us from being towed along with rings in our noses as happens when realism is used.

We had a man playing an eccentric east European man and a tall girl; another man playing a female actress, a winged girl, Coraline's true father, and bit parts.

The only actor who played only a single role was the protagonist, and she was on stage continuously.

The scenery was essentially built of pianos small and large, real and toy, at least 4 of which were actually playable, plus several keyboards and the skeleton of a grand. 2 pianos were the orchestra, played by a skilled young woman, who not only played in the standard way, but plucked strings, rubbed a bar over the string, drew a cord across the strings, and in general was as versatile and entertaining as the drama.

Speaking of which, there was a lot of subtle humor...

And the music itself was as strange as the staging.

All in all, a wonderful evening. Mr. Gaiman was there, and had not told the cast he would be. They were surprised and thrilled to see him after the performance. He said it was even better than he expected.