(Her song "Good Girl, Winnie Foster" echoes Mancha's "Naughty" from Matilda, but Matilda herself was a prickly mutineer, whereas Winnie is a starry-eyed rebel.) Winnie sneaks out and meets a teenager, who's another good-natured sort of rebellious. Despite her caring family, Winnie feels oppressed, and dreams of escape. In this rural fantasy, Annie Huston bears a foggy atmosphere of fret as Winnie's anxious Mother, while Susan Perrin-Sallak convincingly inhabits the role of the girl's sympathetic Nana. Mancha was extraordinary starring in Quad City Music Guild's Matilda: The Musical last August, and her two characterizations are so precise that I might not have recognized her in this role if it weren't for her amazing voice. Among them, the almost dangerously talented Wrigley Mancha plays Tuck Everlasting's focal character: 11-year-old Winnie. Between Johnson, musical director Mason Moss, and the whole staff, cast, and crew, this production boasts a passel of multi-skilled folks. The show opened on Broadway on 2016, and the Spotlight's lively, sophisticated version was directed by Becca Johnson – so delightful as Audrey in the venue's fall presentation of Little Shop of Horrors. This musical's book is by Claudia Shear and Tim Federle, its score by Chris Miller, and its lyrics by Nathan Tysen. I left feeling both impressed and refreshed. So even though I hadn't read the Natalie Babbitt novel on which it's based, I was happy to attend Thursday's final dress and tech rehearsal for Tuck Everlasting at the Spotlight Theatre. In the end, despite the changes and the teen romance, it is a worthy adaptation and does a fine job with the themes Babbitt explored.After a rough few weeks, I wanted a diversion. I'm sure the temptation was otherwise for some Disney execs, but Winnie ends up having more sense than Bella Swann did. Thankfully, the film keeps the book's bittersweet ending. Now that Hurt has passed away, his commentary about "not fearing death, but only the unlived life" has an added poignancy to it. The signature scene of the book, with Angus and Winnie out on the lake in a rowboat and discussing the nature of life and mortality ("the wheel"), is the highlight of the movie and beautifully acted by Hurt and Bledel. You wouldn't expect Scott Bairstow of all people to give the best performance in the film, but the scene where he anguishingly tells Winnie their family history and his personal tragedy is a genuine tearjerker. In the book he's more accepting of it and seems to have an existential understanding, but in the film, he's a brooding death-seeker who keeps fighting in wars to try and die (and failing every time). One aspect, in my opinion, the film improved on the book is the tragedy of older Tuck son Miles, who had a wife and two children before he realized his immortality and thus ended up losing them through fear (his wife left with the kids after thinking her husband was in league with the Devil) and then to death while he just kept going on. (There's also narration from Elisabeth Shue of all people.) Plus, in an inspired addition from the book, his interest in Winnie has an unpleasantly lecherous edge that makes you all the more uncomfortable whenever he comes into the picture. All three acquit themselves well, but especially Kingsley, who does polite menace exceedingly well. The film certainly has acting pedigree with no less that three Oscar-winning greats featured Willam Hurt and Sissy Spacek as Angus and Mae Tuck and Ben Kingsley as the mysterious Man in the Yellow Suit (no real name given) who is pursuing the Tucks and the spring for his own nefarious means. It gets dangerously close to "Twilight" territory at points, but Bledel and Jackson do well enough to save it and make it tolerable. The biggest change, of course, is aging Winnie up from the 10-year old of the book to a 15 year old in order to cast "Gilmore Girls"-era Alexis Bledel in the role (in her film debut as well) and thus give her a starry-eyed teen romance with younger Tuck son Jesse (Jonathan Jackson). Despite the Disney effect and notable changes, it's a fairly well done adaptation. Given my longtime fascination with the immortality concept, it was a favorite of mine growing up and thus the 2002 adaptation by Disney held some interest for me (there was also an obscure 1981 version that I remember seeing in school). If you've been a kid at any point in the last few decades, you're likely familiar with Natalie Babbitt's 1975 tome about young Winnie Foster who, at the dawn of the 20th century, encounters the immortal Tuck family and the Fountain of Youth-type spring that made them so, causing her to question whether to become like them or live out her mortal life.
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