The 5th Ave [site] is one of my favorite places to see a show for various reasons, one of which is that if there are any bad sightlines in the house I haven’t found them yet. This is good news for the staging of Edward Scissorhands [site], as being able to see this very-visually focused show is a key to enjoying it.

The stage set for Edward Scissorhands is very clever: there is an excllent use of varying opacity screens and light projections to create such diverse settings as a creepy forest and the night sky during an electrical storm. Skillful lighiting conveys clues to the time of day and the time of year for each scene and for those scenes with physical items for setting, the show’s designers wisely have chosen to create a few finely crafted pieces that frame each setting, directing the audience’s eyes into filling in the details.

The play tells a story almost identical to the film on which it is based, although there are some changes–the opening prologue shows us a regular little boy playing with knives that make an ideal lightening rod. His death inspires his grieving father to make his own Frankenstein creature, one with scissors for hands. A group of kids from the nearby town come to play a Halloween trick that doesn’t end well and the scissor-handed Edward is left all alone. The scene shifts to the unnamed suburban town where we are introduced to its families (Boggs, Monroe, Upton, Evercreech, Cotti, and Grubb) in a dance entitled “Suburban Ballet” thaqt would be brilliant if it were a few minutes shorter. Edward emerges and observes; he is found by Peg Boggs, She wins his trust and takes him in, settling Edward into her daughter Kim’s bedroom. Edward falls in love with Kim’s image but she seems to have no interest in him until the final number of the first act, an extremely well executed scene in which specimens in a topiary garden dance exactly like one would imagine topiary would dance, while Edward and Kim open their hearts to one another.

Act two begins with Edward’s success as a barber; this is followed by what I considered the best number of the show, a scene in which a predatory Mrs. Monroe attempts to seduce an anxious Edward while Mr. Monroe moves in and out of the scene, the only one in the theater not feeling the tension between his wife and the unusual boy next door. The choreography here is spectacular, combining elements from all sorts of dance disciplines and adding in some fresh new moves as well. Soon it is Christmas and all is bright and beautiful until Kim’s boyfriend, jealous of her affection for Edward, coerces our hero into getting drunk. Someone hurt and Edward runs away to the graveyard where the boy Edward from the prologue is buried and he reunited with Kim. They share a tender moment that is ruined when the other townspeople arrive and then Edward is gone for good. The show ends with a flurry of snow.

It was unclear to me which actor was performing which role, as the members of the company have all learned multiple roles and the program doesn’t say which one was onstge in each role. This makes it hard to single out individual performances, which is a shame. All the roles were well-played, but some were more remarkable than others and all of the dancers managed to convey a greath depth of feeling with their movement, reciting their “lines” with ther bodies with as much skill as one would hope to hear from an actor’s lips. Overall, this was a fine performance and I would recommend it for most fans of dance or the film. I’m not sure how interesting it would be to people unfamiliar with the film, one of the play’s few weak points is that the lack of exposition allows for a number of unanswered questions, like how is that Mrs. Boggs is so immediately accepting of a strange young man with scissors for hands. Edward’s story is that of an outsider longing very much to be an insider, but the other familes seem to accept him so quickly it’s hard to remember that he’s not really meant to be one of them. Finally, while the dancing itself was always above par, a few of the dance routines seemed to go on for far too long, particularly “The Suburban Ballet”, “The Boggs’ Barbecue” and “The Annual Christmas Ball”.

Compliments must also go to the orchestra which combined members of the Edward Scissorhands tour with local musician; they played the score so flawlessly that for the first few minutes of the stage I wondered if it was a recording. The music for the play was partly composed for the stage and partly taken from Danny Elfrman’s score for the movie and does a fantastic job of supporting the work of the performers and adds to the depth of the stage set. In fact, I liked it well enough that I would buy the soundtrack if made available.

Edward Scissorhands runs through May 13.