Review: Dog + children = much better than cute

Lots of regional theaters enter dogs in the fight to get productions from their stages to Broadway, but Delaware Theatre Company's Because of Winn-Dixie might be the only one featuring an actual canine. Based on the beloved children's novel by Kate DiCamillo, with book and lyrics by Nell Benjamin (Legally Blonde) and music by Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening), this might also be one of the few shows featuring dogs and children in which cuteness, though present in abundance, doesn't take center stage.

That's a good thing, and probably no surprise to fans of Sheik's yearning tunesmithing, here enhanced with a front-porch Southern accent: lots of harmonica, steel guitar, stand-up bass and other hallmarks of country classics. Winn-Dixie isn't exactly Spring Awakening Jr., but it's anchored by children's sadness and loneliness, and is quite beautiful in the way it shows the young shouldering the burdens of their elders.

In the book (and, to a lesser extent, the film), as in this musical, parents leave, children meet with unexplainable tragedy, grown-ups get drunk, misbehave, and go to jail. Meanwhile, the kids see through it all. Young Opal (understated Kylie McVey) sings to her newfound four-legged companion about her preacher father and absent mother in "Awoo," a song about the human desire to let loose and howl. "Mommy . . . Yeah, she went away/Now she's like a swear word, one we cannot say."

And that dog, Bowdie, a great gray pom-pom of a Labradoodle, listens like a champ. Here, dogs behave like dogs, children behave and look like regular children, and the multicultural residents of Naomi, Fla. (including Philly's own Joilet Harris, bringing depth to Gloria Dump, a blues-singing outcast "witch," and Maggie Lakis as the Dewberry boys' single mother, Jeanne) look and sound like folks trying to make lives for themselves on the trailer side of town.

There are some pacing issues, and the introductions of both Gloria and pet store employee Otis follow a forced formula: Opal enters, they chat, the adult launches into an "I am" song, and the scene ends. They're excellent songs, but Benjamin's book doesn't integrate them as well as it should. Some of the blame for this may lie with director/choreographer Marcia Milgrom Dodge, whose movement tends toward the static. However, that blame may also be shared with the need to keep Bowdie calm. It's also unnecessary (and a little weird) for librarian Miss Franny to foist Gone With the Wind onto a young African American girl, when the song "Sweet Life," recounting her own family's Civil War experience, gets the historical point across just fine.

But sometimes when this show is at its simplest, it's at its best. There's magic in watching Opal and her rival Amanda (a superb Leonay Shepherd) separately lose their faith during "Not True at All" and unwittingly reveal themselves as more alike than not. It's quite an achievement for a family-friendly musical to grapple with real issues of faith and still end up restoring it.

Because of Winn-Dixie

Through May 3 at Delaware Theatre Company, 200 Water St., Wilmington.

Tickets: $35-$55.

Information: 302-594-1100 or www.DelawareTheatre.orgEndText