Theater review: A stirring, vivid fantasy reflects chilling reality

Autumn Ness does not so much speak as bluster in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" at the Children's Theatre. When she delivers her lines, you can almost imagine hoarfrost and icicles, instead of words, flying out of her mouth.

A consummate performer, Ness inhabits the role of the White Witch of Narnia with a cold totality that makes you feel for her discontented subjects. You could believe that her character fills the grim landscape with a dread that turns humans into statues, and keeps Narnia a place where it is always winter but never Christmas.

Ness is doing her chillingly beautiful work in Rebecca Lynn Brown's solid, two-hour revival of "Lion, Witch," which opened Friday in Minneapolis. Brown's vividly imagined production, which takes place in Riccardo Hernandez's efficient, winter wonderland-y set, offers a frosted mirror to reality.

The show manifests the subtleties of a fantastic world that has analogues and contrasts in the real one. Writer C.S. Lewis created Narnia as both an escape from war and a place where real-world wrongs can be righted.

Adapted for the stage by Scotsman Adrian Mitchell, "Lion, Witch" begins in London during World War II. Bombs and sirens are going off. Four curious youngsters -- Lucy (Erin Hampe), Peter (Will Von Vogt), Susan (Teresa Marie Doran) and Edmund (Nathan Barlow) -- escape the blitz by going to stay with a professor (played by Gerald Drake).

When they enter his closet, they enter Narnia, where the White Witch runs a fascist regime -- her sleigh is pulled by pith-helmeted reindeer who look like Nazis. But the lion king Aslan (Ansa Akyea) is coming, and he will offer himself up as a sacrifice, dying and rising again. With the kids' help, good wins over evil and the world gains some color and holiday cheer.

Lewis' stories are steeped in the Bible. Brown's production plays the battle scenes without much fuss, or too much violence, even if one of my companions -- the 6-year-old -- covered her eyes when a character is fatally injured. And the production's rustic music and singing does not seem to be organically of the piece. I suspect that's partly because the music is pre-recorded and partly because it is surprising to see Dean Holt, whom we've known as a Buster Keaton-esque performer, sing. (He does it well enough.)

No matter, "Lion, Witch" gives you much to cheer about, including the quartet of promising performers. And Luverne Seifert's Grumpskin is a stitch, a character whose every little gesture provokes laughter.

We may not be under a blitz, as London was when Lewis' characters escaped to Narnia. But with two wars going, plunging home equity values and diminishing 401(k)s, we have our own privation. This "Lion, Witch" offers a simple illustration of hope and youth empowerment in a wintry world.

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390