Open Stage opens its 37th season with the classic epic adventure “Treasure Island,” full of murder, mutiny and marauding misfits. Directed by Stuart Landon, the show holds a boatload of swashbuckling drama, slicing swordplay and overhaul mayhem.
The quest for treasure anchors the tale, which actually begins long before we meet our naïve hero, Jim Hawkins (Gabrielle Dina). Long John Silver (Sean Adams) has been risking life and limb searching for Captain Flint’s treasure map, hauling along his crew, a rough bunch of salts. In this leg of the journey, Silver manipulates his crew onto a ship—with the map—already setting sail for Treasure Island.
Adams plays the blackguard pirate with disarming, subtle charisma, adding just a dropper-full of smarm so that the audience has no trouble rooting against him when we decide we no longer like the cut of his jib. The reactions of Silver’s multiple enemies and friends grow his iconic status, both before and after he takes the stage. (Bravo Zulu to Christopher Robert Ellis, who went full sail on his portrayal of the intense, grog-filled Bill Bones, heightening Silver’s legendary reputation in the wake of his performance.)
Dina takes her character seamlessly through Jim Hawkins’ growth arc, transforming her from a wide-eyed waif into a badass lass who can right her own ship and take command. Full of well wishes for fair winds and following seas, she instead encounters mild misogyny, multiple counts of mutiny, and she learns the hard way who she can trust.
“Treasure Island” is chock-a-block with about 20 simpler characters who provide running gags that carry through the show, tacking between both knotting the tension and then washing waves of comic relief flotsam and jetsam, both on the high seas and back on land. But these seas are rough, and many of the crew didn’t make it to the end. (I can’t tell you which characters, but all keeled over convincingly.)
One standout sailor is literally a lone voice on a deserted island. Ben Gunn (Josh Miccio) is an abandoned shipmate on Treasure Island who’s described as “smart as paint.” Although he is a late-add to the pirate band, he has no trouble fitting right in with the rest of the misfits. Miccio brings Gunn to life as purposefully indecisive and sniveling, yet weirdly endearing, salting his character interpretation with strange idiosyncrasies. He contorts his body, nimbly making use of all his available space, yet still finds time to comedically nibble on newcomers.
With all the dirt-caked costumes, tattered hemlines, and scraggly hair everywhere, I have only one note… all the actors’ teeth are faarrrr too pretty. Everyone has impeccable dental work for being British pirates in the mid-18th century. To be truly “unfair of face,” someone could have blackened, browned, or even yellowed a tooth or two. Other than that detail, the actors were perfectly outfitted as the loose cannons they were meant to portray.
You and your own crew have permission to come aboard Open Stage’s yar voyage. Hobble in on yer peg leg, get in close quarters with the rest of the audience, and become stowaways as the Open Stage crew sets sail for “Treasure Island.”
“Treasure Island” is underway Oct. 8 to 29 at Open Stage, 25 N. Court St., Harrisburg. For more information and tickets, visit www.openstagehbg.com or call 717-232-6736.
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