The critic had never been to Book-It Repertory Theatre before, so he
was unprepared for what was to come. He had come to see a theatrical
adaptation of local author Jim Lynch’s debut novel, The Highest
Tide, about a 13-year-old boy who discovers a dead giant
squid on a beach near Olympia.
The Highest Tide is a novel more beloved by local booksellers
for being set locally than for being well-written—Miles O’Malley,
the main character, is the kind of boy who’s so precocious that he has
to be the invention of a grown man.
The jarring thing about the adaptation is Book-It’s house style, in
which characters speak their dialogue as though they’re reading it in a
book: Much of the dialogue ends with characters saying, “she said” or
“he said,” as in “I am saying this sentence, he said.” This is
presumably a way to keep the adaptation as close as possible to the
text.
“But it’s really just a stupid device,” the critic said to himself,
when one of the main characters is introduced by shouting his own
name, like an imbecile.”And it’s distracting from the text it’s
supposed to be emphasizing. If you have people dressed as fictional
characters acting out roles onstage, you might as well pretend that
they’re the authors of the words they’re speaking. Otherwise, they’re
just weirdos talking about themselves in the
third person.”
“See?” he added. “Isn’t this fucking annoying?” He agreed
with himself.
But the acting saves the production from itself: Kellan Larson, who
plays the boy, speaks with a charming lisp and brings real enthusiasm
to wonky marine biology terms and lessons about the startling length
of mollusk penises. Larson’s enthusiasm also disarms the book’s
main problem: It’s harder to believe that a 13-year-old boy wouldn’t
say the words he’s saying when an actual teenage boy is saying
the words.
Other elements, like the cult that believes Miles is a minor
messiah, are handled well—adorably, believably, all the cult
members are wearing Crocs—and director Jane Jones, who also
adapted the novel, makes intelligent use of a large ensemble cast. But
a few stretches, like an onstage pantomime of a drowning, drag on too
long, leaving the audience painfully aware that the actor has been
abandoned on the front of the stage by clumsy staging and poor
direction, left to do nothing but a slow-motion twist for five minutes
while sucking air through a PVC pipe.
Through the sheer power of Larson’s likability, the play works
better than the book.
“But it still goes on too long,” the critic said, shifting in his
seat.
“Groan,” the seat said. 