You can tell a great deal about a play before the actors even appear on stage. If there are props outside of the curtain when the house lights are not yet dimmed, one can gauge how those one or two objects fit into the play's whole. Of course, if the curtains are already open when you take your seat, then part of the jigsaw already is solved.
Such is the case with Call of the Wild. The set is awash in ice blue from the color filters high on the batons. There is a rosy length of color on the cyclorama, reminiscent of the Northern Lights. A rickety staircase leads up to an equally rickety platform on stage left, leaving stage right free of props.
The set gives the feeling of looking at the rotting wooden skeleton of a ship. In the center of this structure's two massive posts is strung a wide red curtain, a stage within a stage. This idea is reinforced by the fact that the musicians, who enter first in period costumes, are not in the orchestra pit but seated on stage right.
Yes, I said musicians. Using Jack London's two famous works, The Call of the Wild and White Fang, Marianne Kubik and Jon Lipsky fashioned the two storylines into a musical simply titled Call of the Wild. The idea was begun in the late '90s by Lipsky, a professor at Boston University's College of Fine Arts who wrote the script for his course in collaborative playwriting. The script fuses the two story lines together, mixing characters and melding themes until you think that Buck, the main character from The Call of the Wild, really was White Fang's father. Other characters who are shared in the script were Beauty Smith, John Thornton, Weedon Scott and Judge Scott.
Like the novels, the play is told through the dogs' perspective. Actors double as dogs and as humans, who are called "gods" by the dogs. For the most part, changes in character, from human to dog, are smoothly done. I was surprised by how well the actors portray dogs and how Kubik, the director, uses short two-word sentences, giving each dog a unique bark. Queenie says "pretty girl, pretty girl," and Buck says "good dog, good dog," for example. You truly feel as if there are dogs on the stage as well as humans. Minor costume changes were completed in front of the audience, allowing actors to change characters easily.
The set is well suited to the script and the attitude of the play. The script calls for a weak fourth wall, which traditionally divides the characters on stage from the audience. Call of the Wild's stage within a stage emphasizes the feeling of story-time theater. The set piece that resembles the ship's wooden skeleton is used for just that purpose, to act as a backdrop for Buck's voyage to the Yukon at the beginning of the play. In that scene the actors do a masterful job of mimicking the ship's movements and later of being hoisted from the ship's cargo hold.
Act I flows easily with lots of momentum. Energy is high and pick-ups are quick -- there are no awkward pauses between lines. Kubik takes advantage of the set and places the actors at different levels and in tableaus, making the production more visually interesting.
Equally as interesting is the use of song and dance to narrate the story. I use the term "dance" lightly because for the most part the dance moves are imitations of dogs mushing through the arctic snow. There is one anomaly to this norm. During the song "Go Down 1," the sled team randomly breaks into a hip hop dance routine that has no place in the frozen tundra of this play.
The evocative score complements the mood of the scenes, with heavy percussive beats to mimic the primitive and a sole violin to represent the desolate wilderness of the Yukon.
Yet, where Act 1 is energetic and intense, Act 2 drags along. The actor playing White Fang does not convey the same canine sense and intensity as the actor portraying Buck. Especially disappointing is the fight scene between White Fang and the English Bulldog. The fight does not have as much suspense as the fights in Act 1 or as the actual fight in the book.
Despite its flaws, Call of the Wild is an interesting rendition on London's timeless stories, one that skillfully melds the lives of two beloved characters, Buck and White Fang. I recommend going with an open mind and a readiness to experience something a little off the beaten path. Accept the addition of song and dance, and Call of the Wild will draw you in and allow you to experience London's classics in the land of the Artic Rose.
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