The Snow Queen

Thanks mostly to the Walt Disney Corporation, Hans Christian Andersen is generally remembered as a kindly composer of innocent entertainments for children. But the real Andersen was far more interesting. He was a tormented soul who larded his tales with his own psychic misery, apparently in the belief that what kids want from a story is a stew of self-pity and repressed eroticism. Needless to say, the CTC’s new adaptation of The Snow Queen favors the Disney Andersen over the real one; the casting, for example, pretty much rules out any thought of a future romance between the two central characters. Nevertheless this production does manage to capture much of the story’s inherent spookiness. Scenic designer Michael Sommers turns the rather flimsy script into a parade of strikingly beautiful and weird images. Ruth MacKenzie’s pastiche of Scandinavian folk music—the same stuff that made her recent show Kalevala so popular—provides another layer of eerie atmosphere. Co-directors Sommers and Peter Brosius keep the images and songs moving energetically along. And if the show’s message about friendship seems a little tame, well…the CTC is a theater for children.