“All I have told is true, but it is not the whole truth.” — Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1937
Laura Ingalls Wilder was just a baby when her restless Pa moved the family from the big woods of Wisconsin to the little house on the Kansas prairie.
It was 1867. The Civil War was just two years past. Ulysses S. Grant was in the White House. And, popular authors of the day included Mark Twain and Louisa May Alcott.
In 1957, three days after her 90th birthday, Laura Ingalls Wilder, who has seen and done so much, died. We liked Ike then. Electricity, telephone lines and a growing number of TV sets lit up American homes. Cars, not covered wagons, putt-putted along the roadways. Folks were — and still are — reading her somewhat fictionalized accounts of pioneer life in the brutal, beautiful and untamed American frontier. More than 60 million copies of her nine-book Little House series have been sold in more than 30 languages worldwide (not counting libraries, where I got mine).
Melissa Gilbert was a 10-year-old California girl when she first put on Laura’s bonnet and mentally relocated to Walnut Grove, Minn., for the TV series based on Ingalls’ books. She was 20 when that run ended. Now 46, she’s circled back to the vehicle that made her a household name. In Little House on the Prairie: The Musical she plays Caroline “Ma” Ingalls, Half-Pint’s mother, a character in whom both fans of the TV show and fans of the Wilder books will see changes. Gilbert’s Ma is a bit bigger and bolder. The creative team, she says, wanted to imbue her with the spark that Gilbert showed in her decade as Laura.
They knew what they were doing, Gilbert says, phoning during a free hour in Houston. This “Ma” is brave, Gilbert says. “She’s braver than I am. She’s contained. She’s strong. She’s fun. She’s kind. She’s fiery.”
She’s still a central character, of course, but not the central character. The musical is built around Laura from age 12 to 16, a span that roughly covers the events of the last four books in the series, from By the Shores of Silver Lake through These Happy Golden Years. It’s the time spent in De Smet, South Dakota, where the Ingalls family lived for many years and where Laura met Almanzo Wilder, the man she would marry.
Gilbert has one solo number, “Wild Child,” sung in Act Two as Ma urges the maturing young woman (Laura) not to lose the vitality and tenacity that have been the hallmarks of her younger years. Gilbert, who began dancing at age two and has been singing on and off almost as long, says her favorite moment is a quiet one. She sits to the side of the stage and looks on as Pa sings, with Laura listening, about his love for unsettled lands in “The Prairie Moves.”
Gilbert signed up for this musical buggy ride four years ago as the show prepped for its world premiere at the esteemed Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. It has changed radically since then. All but two songs are new, she says. The pace, tempo and details in scenes have grown and the characters have been fleshed out. She expects even more changes in the musical’s next life — they’re hoping for a limited run on Broadway — but says the Little House family already is grieving its inevitable breakup.
The challenge, she says, “is keeping it all together from city to city.” Gilbert has fought some laryngitis (she cites constantly changing climates, eight shows a week and almost as many interviews). She missed shows in Spokane, Wash., when she needed back surgery and will again see a back surgeon when the tour ends in late June in Kansas City, Mo. She downplays every ache and pain; you can hear the smile in her voice as she reflects on this journey. Simply, she says, “I’ve been training for this my whole life.”
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Kathy Janich is an Atlanta theater artist and freelance writer. After years in daily newspapers, she’s found a joyous second career as an artistic associate, primarily at the smart, gutsy and bold Synchronicity Theatre.
