"The Giver" at Open Window Theatre

I somehow have never read the popular "young adult dystopian novel" The Giver, maybe because I was no longer a young adult when it was published in 1993. It has since been adapted into a play by playwright Eric Coble (The Velocity of Autumn), now playing at Open Window Theatre in a lovely and moving production. It may be a book and a play for "young adults," but we all need to be reminded of the power of emotions, and the need to be open to feeling the pain of life in order to feel its joys. A talented cast, clear direction, and sparse design bring the novel and the emotions it evokes to life. Head to Open Window Theatre, a cozy space in a strip mall in Inver Grove Heights, through March 22 to experience this well-known story on stage.

The Giver describes a community that is tightly controlled, and so outwardly pleasant that you know it's covering some bad stuff. It's a society built around the concept of sameness - no color, no hills, no emotions, and no memories of anything that happened before. Babies are born to birthmothers and distributed to families to raise, and everyone is assigned their role at age 12, to fulfill their place in the community with no questions asked. When Young Jonas is assigned the role of "Receiver of Memory," he works with the current Receiver, now referred to as the Giver, who transfers all of his memories to Jonas to keep. Pleasant memories like snow and sunshine, and unpleasant ones like pain and war. Jonas begins to see the color in the world, and the flaws in this society. The two determine a plan to give everyone their memories back, enriching their lives despite the pain it will bring.

Jonas confronting the community (photo by Richard Mailand)

The Giver is reminiscent of other dystopian stories like the Apple TV series Severance (removing memories and then painfully rediscovering them) and Pluribus (everyone behaving in the same robotic emotionless way), the recent Hulu series Paradise (a neatly constructed society controlling for everything), even The Handmaid's Tale (girls assigned to the role of "birthmother" at age 12, destined to have precisely three babies and then be reassigned to the labor force). It's also reminiscent of one of my favorite Minnesota Fringe Festival shows last year, 503 based on the dystopian novel We, which the director of this play Zach Christensen also directed. Once again he has created a very crisp and well-defined world, where everything makes sense, but feels so wrong. The use of movement contributes to the robotic sameness feel of the community, and also helps to create some of the more fluid memory moments like sledding or elephants. 

the Giver (Keith Prusak) imparting painful memories to
the Receiver (Samuel Osborne-Huerta, photo by Richard Mailand)

The design of the show is shades of gray, from the characters' identical outfits to the gray wall backdrop to the blocks that serve as furniture. Color only comes in when the Giver starts imparting his memories to Jonas, with projections of happy, and later traumatic, scenes on the wall as we see what Jonas is seeing. There is also really clever and effective use of shadow silhouettes, actors standing behind the wall representing ghosts of the past. (Scenic design by Robin McIntyre, lighting and projection design by Alex Clark, costume and props design by Nate Farley.)

the Receiver (Samuel Osborne-Huerta) and
the Giver (Keith Prusak, photo by Richard Mailand)

The talented cast is led by Samuel Osborne-Huerta as Jonas, so believably transforming from the open-hearted and curious child to someone who has seen darkness. Keith Prusak embodies humanity as the only other character with emotions, the Giver, portraying his slow and painful decline. The remainder of the ensemble embodies the sameness in the rest of the society, for the most part cold and emotionless (Deanne McDonald and Sam Sweere as Jonas' assigned mother and father, Sophia Nelson as an Elder), but with a few flashes of personality, especially in the other children (Kira Walk as Jonas' playful sister other child assigned to the family, Ahmad Mohamad as his funny friend, and Caiti Fallon as his would-be crush, if they were allowed to have crushes). The show also features a beautiful original song written and performed by Kira Walk, joined by the ensemble.

If you're a fan of the book, you will probably enjoy seeing it brought to life in such a thoughtful and detailed way. And if not, it's a great introduction to this beautiful story.