Review: ‘Scarecrow on Fire’ takes Dorothy and friends on an imaginative post-Oz trip

What happened to Dorothy when she got back from Oz?

Did she grow up to settle into a life of Midwestern domesticity in Kansas after her colorful trip down the Yellow Brick Road? Did she go on other Oz-like jaunts? Or did she do something else entirely?

Kevin Kling, one of Minnesota’s finest wordsmiths and storytellers, imagines an answer.

In his new play “Scarecrow on Fire,” Kling posits that Dorothy (singer-songwriter Simone Perrin) returns home but goes to live in the big city — Wichita. We learn about her life and about how she came to have that hallucinogenic trip to Oz in the first place (spoiler alert: it’s not because of some pharmacological trigger).

But after going through some of the vicissitudes of adulthood, Dorothy has an emergency that her friends from Oz can sense. The Scarecrow (Kling), the Lion (fabulously expressive Stephen Yoakam) and the Tin Man (Dan Chouinard, stepping gleefully away from his usual keyboard) all make their way to her in earnest.

The Yellow Brick Road friends marvel, gasp and reel after encountering the technology of our strange world in director Michael Robins’ minimalist but effective staging.

Kling continues the anthropomorphizing of the original source material. In one of the running themes, the Tin Man constantly needs oil and is always seeing things like a fire hydrant as being of his kind.

“Scarecrow” is delivered like a radio play, which allows for savings, er, efficiencies, by the producer, Illusion Theater, which commissioned Kling as part of its 50th celebration. The actors know most of their lines but they didn’t have to. They have their scripts with them at music stands.

The radio play format also means that the team can include musical interludes beyond Perrin’s dreamy adagio rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

Chouinard, who also portrays Toto, the Nurse and a newspaper reporter, plays the piano as descriptive accompaniment.

When the action builds to an emotional peak, the House of Mercy Band, a quartet with three singers delivering country and gospel-inflected Americana, allows the action to breathe.

There’s also an “Applause” sign that gets lit up periodically — not that such a prompt is necessary. For “Scarecrow” is entertaining enough and fun. It showcases Kling’s storytelling and literary powers. And it’s fun to see the likes of Yoakam doing what could be considered a campfire gathering.

When: 7:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun.

Where: Center for Performing Arts, 3754 Pleasant Av. S., Mpls.