Colossal Collegial Comrade

The words "friendly" and "giant" don’t occur together often in children’s literature, but acclaimed author Roald Dahl created the story of the Big Friendly Giant — call him BFG for short — and his human friend, Sophie, in 1982. Mark Branner, assistant professor of theater at Univeristy of Hawaii at Manoa, is bringing the story to the Kennedy Theatre Main Stage for five performances starting Friday.

"(The story) is a Roald Dahl classic, although maybe not as well known in the U.S. as perhaps in the U.K., and (the play) is a pretty faithful adaption," Branner said. "It’s quite an adventure story."

The story follows a group of 50-foot giants who are eating children around the world, Branner said. One giant who’s not quite as tall and is known as the runt befriends an orphan named Sophie. The two of them hatch a plan to save the children that involves the Queen of England.

British writer David Wood adapted the story for the stage. Another Dahl story staged by Wood, "The Twits," was performed at Hawaii Theatre last year.

"Wood actually declined this commission to do ‘The BFG’ many times because he said it’s just not possible to make huge giants on stage," Branner said.

Wood’s eureka moment came when he was watching children playing an imaginative game. And so, "The BFG" begins with a girl named Sophie acting out a story about a girl named Sophie and her adventures with a giant. Sophie uses her doll to play the Sophie in the story and enlists her father to be the giant.

"The second half of the story kind of switches the scale," Branner said. "When they arrive into England and to Buckingham Palace, we actually have this 24-foot-tall puppet (as the giant), and everybody else is played by themselves."

Janna Rose Shields stars as Sophie, Joe Abraham plays her father and Rachael Chapman plays three characters: Sophie’s mother, the Queen of England and the BFG. As Chapman is nowhere near 24 feet tall — the height of a runt giant — Branner and his tech crew of puppet builders, Margot Fitzsimmons and Aubrey Watkins, use some stage magic to do the rest.

The giant is sometimes played as a human, other times as a giant puppet, Branner said.

"At the end of the play, when they fly giant helicopters to giant country, all of that is done with shadow puppetry. We actually have two very large screens to the sides of stage, and you hear the helicopter sounds all the way around you, from one side leaving England all the way to arrive in giant country," he said.

"There are a lot of different ways of telling the story, and I think that’s one of the great things about theater for younger audiences. We don’t have to stay in the literal realistic world. We can go all over the place, and the kids follow along with us quite easily."

"The BFG" is the third children’s show that Branner has staged over the last several months. He directed "Eddie Wen’ Go" at the Hawaii Theatre in September and "The Very Persistant Gappers of Frip" at Kennedy Theatre last fall. Both also made imaginative use of puppets and stage props to bring magical stories to the stage.

"The interesting thing about a lot of Dahl (stories) is that there’s almost always no parents around. I think there’s a healthy dose in all of Dahl’s work of this singular child who’s somewhat alone in the world — they might be living with uncles and aunts, in this story Sophie is an orphan — and suddenly when the parents are gone, the kids can have these grand adventures," Branner said.

"I think ‘The BFG’ represents Dahl’s theme that ‘kids can do it.’"

John Berger, jberger@staradvertiser.com