The globally beloved ANNE OF GREEN GABLES is blooming to life onstage at the Lieder!
A favourite for over 100 years, Anne of Green Gables follows the precocious and imaginative Anne Shirley as she captures the hearts and minds of her newfound family and neighbours in the small farming community of Avonlea – simply by virtue of her own pluck and personality.
'Dear old world', she murmured, 'you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.’
Directed by Blake Selmes.
DATES
Charity Opening Night
Raising funds for high school students in need, hosted by the CWA Goulburn Evening Branch:
Friday 29 November - 7:30pm
🎟️ Opening Night Bookings:
The Season Continues:
Saturday 30 November - 7:30pm
Wednesday 4 December - 7:30pm
Friday 6 December - 7:30pm
Saturday 7 December - 2:00pm
Saturday 7 December - 7:30pm
Wednesday 11 December - 7:30pm
Friday 13 December - 7:30pm
Saturday 14 December - 2:00pm
Saturday 14 December - 7:30pm
Review
Lieder’s Anne of Green Gables Blooms Brightly! - Review by Greg Angus
Celebrate the blossoming of spring-into-summer with the Lieder Theatre’s charming production, Anne of Green Gables. Director Blake Selmes has breathed new life into this beloved coming-of-age story with a talented cast and innovative staging.
The stage adaptation by Peter DeLaurier is very true to the original book by Lucy Maud Montgomery. It is sure to delight lifelong fans of the novel and newcomers who will relate to its timeless themes and the wild ups and downs experienced in any teenager’s mind!
Anne Shirley, accidentally adopted at 11 years old, is often the perfect picture of optimism. This character’s warmth and life-affirming sentiments have rung out through generations. “I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe the best does.”
Anne’s unbridled sense of joyful wonder is balanced by her impulsive need to share every tangential thought, anxious worry, sensory epiphany, and honest remark, much to the chagrin of the proper citizens of Prince Edward Island.
The atmosphere of late 1800’s Maritime Canada is captured beautifully by the Lieder’s costuming, the cast’s ambitious Canadian dialect delivery, and clever stage construction. Selmes has employed a storybook inspired design and impressionistic staging. Rooms and period architectural features of the Cuthbert’s “Green Gables” home appear almost as a pop-up book display while functioning robustly as a farm kitchen and cozy upper-gable bedroom retreat.
With just a subtle shift in lighting, the homely country kitchen suddenly glows brilliant blue and violet to reflect raw emotion as Anne’s wild imagination literally splashes colour into the reserved lives of Avonlea. As the whole cast is awash in her colours, Anne’s inner world begins to affect the social world around her.
Nature itself is often considered a character force in this story. Somehow, the Lieder production team gives the audience an orchard, a river, and more, through elegant theatre craft and skilled ensemble acting. Scenes flow from the interior of the Green Gables house to apple blossom grove to classroom to pond to steam train quite seamlessly, often through live soundscapes and the beautifully rehearsed movements of the ensemble.
Musical Director and Composer Andy Picker accompanies his own original score on the cello, driving the emotional foundation of key scenes. Picker’s reactive musical improvisations are a wonderful onstage reflection of Anne’s unpredictably intense emotions, reflecting the extremes of Anne’s rapidly shifting world view to great effect, with likely musical variations, as each unique performance may unexpectedly reveal new aspects of Anne’s psyche.
Anne’s exuberance for the natural world, and troubled confusion over human relationships, is brilliantly delivered onstage by Aliya Blay, dexterously adjusting the intensity of Anne’s outbursts to mark her character’s changing and maturing outlook from age 11 to 18. As Anne grapples to find a place to belong, Blay exudes the completely exasperating yet never offensive kind of boldness that so many fans cherish in this beloved literary character.
Anthony Lewis balances quiet strength, shy introversion, and a dash of cheekiness as Matthew Cuthbert, the adoptive father who recognises much of himself in Anne. Erin Williams wields much of the story’s humour and humanity as Marilla Cuthbert, Matthew’s straight-laced sister and frequent foil, whose efforts to uphold propriety are directly challenged by Anne’s mere presence. The conflict, caring and chemistry of these three main characters is palpable and often felt most powerfully in the quietest of moments and smallest of gestures. It is a delight to see them gradually accept each other’s foibles and grow together.
Melissa Chandler provides comedy and force to Avonlea’s societal expectations as Mrs. Lynde. Alyce King delivers vastly unique personalities to several characters, often revealing how Anne is misunderstood and maligned by others. Timothy Berry deftly rounds out the adult cast as the Island’s doctor.
The ensemble from the Lieder Youth Theatre are perfectly pitted against one another as the neighbours and classmates who know too well how to push each others’ buttons and make a newcomer feel either welcomed or admonished with a single joking word or tug of the plaits. Amelia Attard shines as Anne’s closest friend Diana Barry, who comes to know Anne on increasingly deeper levels through a growing trust and a few misadventures. Simon Walshe’s Gilbert grows from pest to rival to maybe much more. Sebastian Paranthoiene brings a delightfully woeful self-deprication to the aspiring Moody McPherson. Sophie Pratt, Monet Remington and Hannah Miller are Jane, Ruby and Josie; a giddy and surly trio whose well-choreographed school-girl antics provide a whirlwind of peer pressure and acceptance that keeps Anne on her toes.
I highly recommend this winner of a show, whether it is a new discovery or a nostalgic favourite for you. Bring a kindred spirit or two to enjoy an artistic and fresh take on this classic tale. - Greg Angus