THE WONDERFUL WIZARD of OZ

This isn't the best production of THE WIZARD OF OZ. Tara Sands's narration has an interesting texture, a mixture of stressed consonants and clipped pacing, but the emotional register is off. The Tin Woodman, for example, sounds so dispassionate that it's hard to believe he wants a heart. The performance flattens the irony that is important in the underlying text. Instead Sands focuses on the surface of the story, pushing emotion into the words, making happy sound overly happy and funny sound like it's inflated with a laugh. It's an antiquated style that might serve the retelling of a classic tale, but in this case doesn't. A.M.P. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2013]