Ambitious Village Theatre is ready for launch of big musical "Show Boat"

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly.

And anyone mounting the grand old Broadway musical "Show Boat" has gotta maneuver a massive river boat onstage — or artfully fake it.

The folks at Village Theatre, where a revival of "Show Boat" opened Thursday, claim they are up to the job.

Who can doubt them? The Issaquah company, which specializes in musicals, has gradually upped the visual ante with increasingly elaborate, impressive and expensive production values.

Consider the gorgeously palatial Asian look of "The King and I" last season. Or the deluxe fairy-tale visuals for a recent run of "Beauty and the Beast."

Robert Dahlstrom's sets for the season-closing "Show Boat" are even more ambitious. A University of Washington Drama School professor and esteemed opera and theater designer, Dahlstrom says the titular prop in "Show Boat" (christened in the script as "The Cotton Blossom") is a steamer, "30 feet wide, 10 feet deep and 20 feet tall." It weighs 6,000 pounds, and has a working smokestack.

"When the boat docks in the first act, the audience is going to be very pleased," Dahlstrom promises.

Adds "Show Boat" director Jerry Dixon: "It's pretty spectacular. That the boat can even move, and move so smoothly and noiselessly, is kind of stunning. And that's in the first two minutes."

That scenic effect has wowed viewers since "Show Boat" first cruised onto Broadway in 1927.

It was a landmark show in several respects. The glorious Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II score boasted such gems as "Old Man River" and "Bill." The story about troupers working the banks of the Mississippi in a floating theater (based on a novel by Edna Ferber), addressed bigotry and interracial marriage with rare candor for the era. And the songs were woven into the plot — a big advance for American musicals.

Furthermore, for sheer spectacle in legendary impresario Florenz Ziegfeld's initial production, there was the Cotton Blossom. (The ship was also prominently featured in Hal Prince's acclaimed 1994 Broadway revival of "Show Boat," seen here at the Paramount Theatre.)

At Village Theatre, building a hefty Cotton Blossom would have been impossible without the theater's new scene shop, claims Dahlstrom. The 10,000-foot space, near Village's main stage Francis J. Gaudette Theatre, replaced several smaller shops in different locales.

The prop vessel breaks down into portable pieces, which will be trucked to Everett Performing Arts Center for a second "Show Boat" run starting in July. Dahlstrom and Dixon also found ingenious ways to streamline the musical's many set changes.

"We split the boat in half, to reveal interior sets — a saloon, a cabin on the boat, a convent," Dixon says.

Though nicknamed "Slow Boat" by stage folk, Dixon insists the musical will run a shipshape 2 hours and 45 minutes at the Village — in a "cinematic" staging that's "always dancing and swirling along."

Such scenic effects do not come cheap, but Village executive producer Robb Hunt considers it money well spent. Unlike many other large theaters mounting big musicals, he points out that Village Theatre does not rent sets or costumes, but always builds its own to fit "the vision of the director and designers."

That investment is expanding. As Hunt notes, "In 2008-09 the total budget for sets, costumes and props for Village Theatre's main stage season is $1,436,000" — more than an 8 percent increase from 2007-08.

Is there a danger in spending too much on dazzling visuals, at the expense of other theatrical elements?

Dahlstrom, a Village regular, insists not, pointing out that a bigger share of the budget goes to pay for actors, musicians and other personnel. ("Show Boat" sports a cast of 28.)

"It's not the case, in my view, that the production operation here is wagging the dog," he states. "The sets are machines for the actors and dancers to give their best."

And is it correct to applaud the set, before the actors say or sing a word?

"Nobody minds that applause. It says, we're in the hands of experts here, we need fear nothing. We're going to have fun."

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com