The Wind in the Willows at Shaw is timeless, lively and sweet

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• Title: The Wind in the Willows
• Adapted by: Fiona Sauder, based on the play Toad of Toad Hall by A. A. Milne
• Performed by: Lawrence Libor, Matt Alfano, Sara Farb, Sharry Flett, Qasim Khan, Jaden Kim, Graeme Kitagawa, Allison McCaughey, Gabriella Sundar Singh, Taurian Teelucksingh, Jacqueline Thair, Shawn Wright
• Director: Fiona Sauder
• Company: Shaw Festival
• Venue: Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre
• City: Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
• Year: Runs until Sept. 27

More than any other genre, children’s theatre is extraordinarily difficult to get right. A play for kids needs to make sense to the young people in the audience – even better, it ought to engage them, quelling restless squirms – but it must also appeal to the adults buying the tickets, whose beloved childhood stories may or may not overlap with those of the youngsters in their care.

In recent years, the Shaw Festival has struggled to find that sweet spot. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, inexplicably adapted last year such that Aslan was not a lion, but a vaguely bohemian human, was a memorable low. (And it’s worth noting that uneven kids’ programming isn’t limited to Niagara-on-the-Lake: Just look at the Stratford Festival’s highly disappointing production of The Hobbit.)

The Wind in the Willows, about a reckless, self-absorbed driver named Toad and his menagerie of (mostly rodent) friends, marks a step in the right direction for the Shaw Festival, if not a complete departure from the dusty classics that have historically made up the company’s youth programming. Adapted by Fiona Sauder from A. A. Milne’s stage adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s Edwardian stories, the script could use additional work – parts of the play feel surprisingly confusing and didactic, especially for a piece anticipating young audiences.

Even so, the production feels like a gasp of fresh air for Shaw, thanks mostly to Sauder, who directs in addition to holding the pen. As artistic director of Bad Hats Theatre, Sauder has spent a career writing, producing and directing fabulous musical adaptations of children’s classics, including Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland and, yes, Narnia. (Complete with lion.)

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In Toronto and beyond, the auteur has built a recognizable style that achieves the near-impossible: Her approach to storytelling reliably captures the attention of both kids and their grown-ups.

Some jokes in The Wind in the Willows veer toward schoolyard humour – Toad, played by the ever-jolly Lawrence Libor, delights in lambasting “doo-doo head” as an insult – but on the whole, the production is timeless, lively and sweet, a celebration of childhood and a blueprint for how the Shaw might approach their future youth programming while continuing to uplift vintage source material.

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When we first enter Sauder’s whimsical world of talking animals, it’s through the eyes of a young girl named Marigold (Jaden Kim), playing happily in a lush garden. Soon enough, things begin to shrink – or grow, depending on how you look at it. Thumbtacks become giant spears; a dropped teacup becomes a trusty shelter. When Sauder’s ensemble emerges for the meat of the play, they’re dressed in ears and tails, a symphony of mousy (and ratty, and ferrety) friends.

Much of the (very long) first act is spent getting acquainted with the jovial Mole (Gabriella Sundar Singh), the gentle Rat (Sharry Flett) and the persnickety Badger (Shawn Wright). But at the centre of The Wind in the Willows lies Toad, obsessed with motorcars and the thrills of fast driving.

Eventually, of course, Toad runs into some trouble with the cops – stunt driving is as much a problem in this world as in ours, it seems – and a silly story of lawlessness soon takes shape.

As mentioned, Sauder’s script sags in spots. The intermission comes surprisingly late in the show, and the second act is markedly shorter than the first. Some of the morals in Grahame’s stories, too, are as dated as Grahame himself – the economic disparity between Toad, his jury of rabbits and the surrounding creatures is palpable and rooted in familiar British class schisms.

A few production elements, too, fail to land with the oomph Toronto audiences might anticipate from Sauder: Some scenes suffer from sightline issues, owing to the Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre’s in-the-round configuration. As well, Jeff Newberry’s original music is lovely, but as the cast performs without microphones, the songs’ lyrics are more often than not impossible to hear.

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But despite these falters – the creaky script, the minor directing quibbles – The Wind in the Willows is a delight, a sugar-sweet confection frosted with charm. The opening sequence, in which we meet Marigold and then the animals, is choreographed to perfection under the leafy canopy of Judith Bowden’s botanical set. The trial scene, too, is gripping and genuinely funny.

Then again, my opinion matters little in a show like this. At the matinee I attended – packed to the gills with kids and their carers – the youngsters in the crowd couldn’t have been more pleased to be there. (While a few of them have yet to learn the “no talking” rule at the theatre, I’ll cut them some slack – most of their interjections were to clarify plot details, and on this occasion, that’s fair enough.) Several of the kiddos in attendance were clearly at their first play, and the magic of that was evident in their wide eyes, their murmurs as Toad evaded law enforcement.

Indeed, perhaps my favourite response to this show came from a young girl, likely no older than six, evidently in the early stages of discovering plays. As we exited the auditorium, she trailed behind me in a fluffy princess dress, tugging at a grown-up’s arm: “When can we come back to the theatre?”