Curtain Going Up: Howl’s Moving Castle

CURTAIN GOING UP
Theatre Reviews


Book-It Repertory Theatre

Howl's Moving Castle, adapted from the Diane Wynne Jones novel with a score by musical genius Justin Huertas, is a great fairytale for modern audiences, reading like a cross between The Wizard of Oz(the deuteragonist being a reclusive and misunderstood wizard), Beauty and the Beast (except the heroine is the one who gets cursed), and Doctor Who (the titular castle being able to warp through space and time, a la the TARDIS). The all-star cast includes Rachel Guyer-Mafune as protagonist Sophie, who did really well pulling off the old-lady voice after being cursed, Andi Alhadeff as the beautifully evil (as opposed to the traditional "evil=ugly") Witch of the Waste, Fawn Ledesma as the plucky middle sister Lettie, Adam Fontana as the tragicomic fire demon Calcifer (reminiscent of Lumiere from B&TB), and Nicholas Japaul Bernard as the wizard Howl himself (reminded me Of Will Smith's portrayal of the Genie in the live-action remake of Aladdin). This is Book-It's second production of the show and is supposedly a major improvement over the 2017 version, which I missed out on. 


 - Peter Wolfram

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