Edward, the Owl & the Calico Cat

Edward, the Owl & the Calico Cat: Winking & Nudging by the Light of the Silvery Moon

Dougherty Arts Center,

through July 14

Running Time: 1 hr

There once was a lass named Cicchini

Who wrote script for the old, young, and teeny

It was terribly clear

That she loved Edward Lear

From the start of her play 'til the finis.

Austin playwright Emily Cicchini (Becoming Brontë) tells the true story behind one of childhood's best loved love song/poems, Edward Lear's magical "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat." Born of the vivid imagination of a young, sickly boy in Victorian England, Lear's words were the palette of living color that kept his gray, repressed world bearable (and the sets here brilliantly reflect this dichotomy). Lear's respite was a world of nonsense, populated by the likes of Calico Cats, Jumblies, Mr. and Mrs. Discobbolos, the Scroobious Pip, and the Pobble Who Has No Toes.

In Edward, the Owl & the Calico Cat, Cicchini pays homage and close attention to the author, winking and nudging through this tale of Edward, the lonely boy whose social skills alienate the only true flesh-and-blood friend he has, his cat. Damien Gillen fits the bill of young Edward nicely, all pasty-faced and precocious, his only falter coming in musical numbers where his natural Irish tenor (showcased nicely at the end of the play) was unrealistically expected to stretch into sketchy baritone turf. The rest of the cast works well, each filling both major and minor roles seamlessly. Betsy McCann is a standout as Grace, Edward's beloved puss. She plays the minxy Manx with elegant sass -- 100% kitten. Her character is so much a standout, at times, however, that the romantic chemistry with beau owl never formulates, even amidst some of this world's most romantic prose: "And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon, The moon, The moon, They danced by the light of the moon."

Despite these minor quibbles and a few historical inaccuracies and taken liberties (for example, nowhere in the poem does the pussycat haggle with the pig; the owl offers him a shilling and that's that ...), the Pollyanna Theatre Company's production stays on track, even throwing detail-meaty bones to dorks like me who already knew that a runcible spoon is indeed a "spork." However, meaty text like Cicchini's is tough to follow at breakneck pace -- a pace set perhaps to suit audiences full of kids. It was tough, for example, to understand why, exactly, the owl in this case was a Texan. But it all wraps up nicely in the end, as the cast celebrates with the classic musical number "Buffalo Gals." You know where they got that "And dance by the light of the moon," line ... right?