Time Again in Oz: Right on Time

B. Iden Payne Theatre,

through April 22

Running Time: 1 hr, 45 min

Timeless. It's a term we use most often as a virtue, as when we praise the enduring quality of certain stories about courageous girls who are whisked away from their homes to strange, wondrous lands where they enjoy the most marvelous adventures. But by the end of this new musical version of one such story, we come to see this term in another light, as a fault. For in their take on Ozma of Oz, the third book in Frank Baum's fantasy series, Suzan Zeder and Richard Gray have crafted a vision of a world that is literally timeless, that never progresses beyond a single day, that never sees the seasons turn or the years pass, that never knows age. In the face of this unchanging world, we discover -- or rediscover -- how precious time is.

Our guide for this lesson is the much-beloved Dorothy Gale, the young Kansan whose kindness and pluck on her first trip to Oz, as chronicled in Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and especially the 1939 film based on it, endeared her to so many. Here, she and her ailing Uncle Henry are on an ocean liner bound for Australia when a typhoon carries them -- and Uncle Henry's prize hen Bill -- off the boat and over the rainbow. For our heroine (and those of us who know her original visit), the return to Oz follows a familiar pattern: come into possession of an item of great power which is coveted by one of the local villains, embark on a journey to see a mystical ruler, encounter fantastic creatures, befriend a few, face peril from the rest, make narrow escapes, and finally confront the wicked villain. This time, however, instead of leading her to see how much value there is in home, Dorothy's sojourn in Oz leads her to see how much value there is in time. Through TicToc, a mechanical man able to make time move forward or backward or stop altogether, she has an opportunity to turn back the clock and return her uncle to health. It forces the Kansas girl -- who, on the cusp of becoming a teenager, is already in the thick of age-related issues -- to confront what it means to age, in all its complexity, its sorrows and joys.

The lesson that Gray and Zeder impart here is a complicated one, much more tangled in ambivalence toward loss and growth, the past and future, than "There's no place like home." And yet, to their credit, the authors' sentiment rings through this piece as clearly as that signature phrase did through the Judy Garland movie. Gray and Zeder are wise enough to follow the model of the film, with its artful integration of Dorothy's feelings toward home in the prologue and her quest to the Emerald City. Here, Dorothy's conflicts about age are obvious before the wind ever sweeps her away, and the presence of Uncle Henry -- vigorous of spirit but frail of body -- with her in Oz provides a constant reminder of time's ravages, so that her coming to terms with time grows naturally from the story. And Zeder and Gray are similarly artful to the film in their balance of adventure and message, humor and gravity, in their portrayal of character and relationships and wonder, in the integration of story and song.

Of course, Time Again in Oz isn't the MGM movie or the Baum Ozma, and sometimes that takes getting used to. This Dorothy isn't the sweetly self-possessed youth embodied by Judy Garland; she's anxious and moody and almost phobic about traveling, at least in the play's early going. It's a bit startling for fans of the film, but it goes down easier the more you see how this characterization suits the story Zeder and Gray want to tell (though even so, at times they lay on the insecurities awfully thick). And none of the songs here sound quite like "Over the Rainbow," though Richard Gray's music captures the mood of the story in a spirit akin to Harold Arlen's: sometimes playful, sometimes soulful, with a recurring bounciness and verve that makes you want to skip right down the yellow brick road. (And his tip of the hat to the film, in which the residents of Oz sing of Dorothy's triumph over the Wicked Witches, declaring her their "national hero," is a wonderfully nifty touch.)

The more you can set aside your memory of this or that other Oz, the more likely you'll be able to appreciate the imagination and craft of the one conjured here by the UT Department of Theatre & Dance. From scenic designer Carey Wong's elegant suggestion of an ocean liner and towering lunchpail tree to costume designer Susan Tsu's timepiece-studded tin suit for TicToc and wheel-covered suits for the roller-blading Wheelers, the show's visuals boast an engaging sense of the fanciful. And the actors invest themselves totally in this enchanted world, with Keri Safran making the fears and concerns of her Dorothy real and affecting, David Nancarrow filling Uncle Henry with a robust love for life and compassion for his niece, Drew Burch giving her oversized chicken Bill a jovial comic goose, and Adam Hunter Howard infusing his rocky Nome King with a deep, rumbling menace. Director Rod Caspers has coordinated all of it into its own world outside our world, a place that is timeless in both senses of the word.

Timefull. It's a term we may not ever use, but it's one that fits this show. The ticking of seconds, the rising and setting of the sun, the flipping of calendar pages sound throughout it; they are its heartbeats, and they make us mindful -- and appreciative -- of our own. That message is one that's always timely and may mean that this new musical of Oz is, like its source, timeless.