‘Big Fish’ a tall tale of love and trust

“Big Fish,” opening Wednesday at Music Theatre Wichita, is about the complex, loving but often exasperating relationship between a father and son – made even more so because of a giant, a mermaid, a witch and a werewolf.

The perpetually sunny father is a traveling salesman who can’t resist embellishing ordinary life into extraordinary adventures. And his logical, skeptical son is determined to sort out truth from fantasy at a crucial point in their lives. It’s all about love and trust.

“I love everything about this new musical,” says an enthusiastic Wayne Bryan, MTW’s producing artistic director, who is directing this regional premiere of a show that opened on Broadway just two years ago.

“I love the music: melodic, smart and well-rhymed. I love the colorful characters and the fantasy flashbacks, which are pure widescreen and Technicolor,” Bryan says. “I love the message, which is universal and very close to the bone about getting to know aging parents before it’s too late in order to understand why you are like them – or not. It’s a wonderful idea for a show.”

Based on the 1998 novel by Daniel Wallace and the 2003 film by Tim Burton, this stage adaptation has music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa (“The Addams Family,” “The Wild Party”) and a book by John August, who also wrote the screenplay for the film starring Albert Finney and Billy Crudup.

In exploring the father-son relationship, the show has one foot in present-day Alabama and one in a timeless fantasy world of imagination, exaggeration and wishful thinking.

Playing the father, Edward Bloom, who is absent for months at a time in order to provide a stable, white-picket-fence world for his wife and son, is Vincent Corazza. Playing the son, Will, is Skyler Adams. Playing Sandra, the wife and mother caught between the two at-odds guys she loves, is Kim Huber.

Other key cast members are Timothy Hughes as Karl the Giant, Timothy W. Robu as Amos, the owner-operator-ringmaster of a small circus, and 9-year-old Topher Cundith (last seen two shows back as the titular lead in “My Son Pinocchio”) as Young Will.

Music director Thomas W. Douglas will lead a 15-piece orchestra through what he describes as a “brilliant score” based on music that’s “essentially pop flavored but with heightened reality to tell stories” that goes beyond shallow listenability. “Most pop songs don’t go anywhere. These are inspired and inspiring,” Douglas says.

Choreographer Peggy Hickey and her associate, Ricky Bulda, staged the first regional production of “Big Fish” last fall in California. Hickey, who also choreographed 2014’s Tony-winning best musical “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” on Broadway, describes the movements for this show as “a potpourri of styles” from tap to can-can to hoedown – including appropriate steps for three dancing elephants (or, rather, their derrieres).

“What I love about this show is the way it grabs an audience right away. It has a great immediacy that makes the fantasy sequences so wonderful,” says Hickey, a frequent MTW collaborator whose past shows here include “The King and I,” “The Music Man” and “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.”

Actor Corazza says Edward, the fanciful father, is “a storyteller at heart” rather than a fibber or charlatan.

“He’s an optimist who sees everything in vivid colors and every routine as an adventure,” says Corazza, a Toronto native who toured with “Mamma Mia!” and was on Broadway last year in the boxing musical “Rocky.” This is his MTW debut.

“But if you look deeper, you’ll find that he’s not really the type of person who makes stuff up to make himself feel good. He always sees the positive in people. He refuses to see the negative,” says Corazza, also known for frequent TV guest appearances (“NYPD Blue,” “24”) and for voicing cartoon and video game characters (“Sailor Moon,” “Braceface”).

“Like most people, he wants to be the hero of his stories. He wants to be the star of his life. He wants to be a big fish. His storytelling is his legacy to try to communicate with his son. He’s a good man who knows he doesn’t have an exciting life, but he wants a meaningful one.”

As skeptical, somewhat stodgy son Will, actor Adams admits he’s not much like his character. “Will was ‘born a middle-aged man’ and appointed ‘man of the house’ while his father was out on the road. He didn’t enjoy much of a childhood,” Adams says.

“I’m not like that character, but I need that character in my life to be responsible for helping me deal with life,” says Adams, an Oklahoma native who has become a familiar face here in such shows as “Spamalot,” “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and “Catch Me If You Can.”

“There’s a lot to like about Will. He loves his father but his father drives him nuts. He used to be sort of jealous that his father was always in the spotlight. Now that he’s older, he’s not so much because he has achieved some things on his own,” Adams says, including launching a career as a reporter and getting married.

“The problem is that Will is about to become a father himself for the first time. He vows to be better with his son, more truthful. But first he needs to understand who his father really is,” Adams says. “That’s an honorable quest.”

For Los Angeles-based actress Huber, Sandra is a woman defined by the husband and son she loves.

“Her whole focus is to get the two to connect,” says Huber, a Broadway veteran who began her career as a resident company member for MTW in 1992.

“I love that Sandra does not question her husband’s stories. She believes them because they have such a strong relationship. As long as he comes home, there’s nothing to worry about,” Huber says. “The challenge is playing her at several ages, from when she and Edward meet as kids, as teens when they are dating, as parents of a 6-year-old and as the reality of becoming grandparents.”

In Edward’s stories, Huber says, “Sandra is the ideal version of herself. It may be a fantasy life, but they are real with each other.”

This story was originally published July 17, 2015 at 4:49 PM with the headline "‘Big Fish’ a tall tale of love and trust."