Theater review: Musical doesn’t capture ‘Little Women’

THEATER REVIEW

“Little Women”

Grade: C

Through Dec. 23. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays. $18-$27. Fabrefaction Theatre, 999 Brady Ave., Atlanta. 404-876-9468, fabrefaction.org.

Bottom line: Little to write home about.

However mixed the end results, it was hard not to respect Fabrefaction Theatre’s last show, an ambitious attempt at the daunting Stephen Sondheim musical “Assassins.” In more ways than one, though, the company’s new show, a musical version of “Little Women,” is no “Assassins.”

It’s an incessantly perky and thoroughly superficial truncating of the classic Louisa May Alcott novel about four sisters growing up in 19th-century New England. That their father is off fighting the Civil War barely seems to worry them, when there are eligible bachelors to be romanced.

As adapted (by Allan Knee), one sister’s perilous ice-skating mishap is mainly just a cue for another upbeat, generally forgettable song (by Jason Howland and Mindi Dickstein); at the drop of a hat, she’s up singing and dancing right along with the rest of them.

In her economical Fabrefaction staging, artistic director Christina Hoff only marginally captures a true sense of time or place. Her period costumes are undeniably elegant, but practically nothing is done to dress or accentuate Jeffery Martin’s minimal scenic design. Years and locales change in an instant. Jo March, the plucky heroine of the story, exits one scene shorn of her long locks and quickly enters the next with a full head of hair.

Mary Raines Battle’s performance in the role is overly cute and precious to really appreciate her as much of an impassioned writer or pre-feminist — akin to one of Jo’s own “operatic” characters (a couple of sequences re-enact chapters from the book she’s writing). In her big number near the end of the show (“The Fire Within Me”), she sings about rekindling a spark for life you’d never know Jo lost.

Of course, you can’t fault the cast for the mediocrity of their material. Among the siblings, top acting marks go to Lyndsay Ricketson (late of the Alliance’s “Next to Normal”) as the sweet, ill-fated Beth. With music director Nick Silvestri leading a six-piece band, the musical highlights belong to Mary Welch Rogers as the March matriarch, Marmee, who delivers a pair of moving ballads (“Here Alone,” “Days of Plenty”).

Veteran character actor Robert Wayne has fun playing a cranky old neighbor. So does Dan Ford as his engaging young grandson, at different times wooing two of the girls. As another sister’s less interesting love interest, Daniel Burns boasts a strong singing voice (“More Than I Am”).