Review of The Hypocrites’ Pirates of Penzance at Chopin Theatre

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Pirates of Penzance. It was about pirates and there was a modern major general. It was about a girl named Mabel and daughters of a very model major general. And he was very model-major-general-like. If you don’t know what a general is, you can learn it from me, ADA GREY! There are lots of different kinds of generals. Like a war general who tells you what to do in a war. In A White Christmas there is one general. He was a war general. A modern major general--he is an up-to-date general--his work was to keep people safe because he was keeping his daughters very safe, but then the pirates wanted to marry them so he couldn’t.

The audience was walking around on the stage, and it was really cool. At first I felt a little scared that I got to walk around. And I got to hold up a towel during one of the songs. I felt cute because I was holding up a towel that actually had the British flag on it; I felt super-duper cute and some complimented me on holding the towel. All the grown-ups, I think, since they have lived longer, they have walked around on the stage before because they weren’t scared at all.

It wasn’t what I expected from the person who directed the Comedy of Errors (Sean Graney). I expected it to have more funnier parts that weren’t really in Pirates of Penzance. There were some funny parts but Comedy of Errors had more funny parts. Something that there was a girl with a flipper and she was named Ruth and she was a pirate. She did not have a flipper in the original Pirates of Penzance. I am positive even though I have not seen the operetta.

Christine Stulik played Mabel and she also played Ruth. Ruth wanted to 

marry the young pirate whose name was Frederic. And I think he was still a teenager and she was 46. And she wanted to marry him, but she couldn’t because she was too old for him. Ruth’s part wasn’t that big. And I think it wasn’t that big because we didn’t get to see all of it. Mabel had glasses and was the oldest daughter of the modern major general. And her sisters were younger and all the same age. One of them was a pirate and one was a modern major general’s daughter, but they were both played by the same person. And they were exactly different. One of them was more high-pitched and the other one was more pirate-pitched. It was a little confusing when I first saw Mabel. The performance that she did was great because like her performance made me think that she was not the same person in those costumes.

The Modern Major General’s daughters (Becky Poole, Emily Casey, and Nikki Klix) had their dresses that looked like bathing suits and a bathing suit cap. And that was cool. There were pink and white flowers on their dress and hat. They had to pretend to marry pirates. They sang the modern major general and said “Yes he is! Yes he is!” Or “Yes you are! Yes you are!” They played some music. They played the violin, they played the accordion, and they played the ukulele. Their dancing and singing was kind of like hula dancers and policemen and rock stars and brides. They did a good job doing it.

There was this person called the Pirate King and he was a captain of the ship. And it had a song that told everybody about how he was a pirate king. And his part he wore a sailor’s hat that was hilarious and very short shorts. They were cool. There was a song that had a paradox in it, and I remember a tiny bit of the song, and I’ll sing it: “A paradox, a paradox, a one ingenious paradox.” The paradox was that he had only had five birthdays, but he was not five years old. He was twenty or nineteen or something like that. I learned what a paradox is from my a-genius mom. And my mom is also fuh-larious. (Ed. Note: aw, shucks.) The pirate king was played by Robert McLean. He did a terrific job because he acted like there was actually an ingenious paradox. There was not in real life, but he was faking very good.

Zeke Sulkes played the young pirate whose name was Frederic. Zeke had a cool costume. The costume was shorts with a tie and pirates don’t usually wear ties! His singing was really good. Like how when he was singing an emotion--like a sad one in that song where he said he had to say how he couldn’t be with Mabel--it really felt like he was singing like it was really happening. And I felt like it was really happening too. I don’t know if that was what they really wanted do, but I thought that that was a great idea to do it if that is what they wanted. Zeke was also in The Dirty Cowboy and that was a good play too. In both ones he was both playing good guys. The Dirty Cowboy was all about getting himself clean, but this one was more about love I guess.

Ryan Bourque, Doug Pawlik, and Shawn Pfautsch, they played pirates. When they played their instruments they did a good job because I think they had been practicing for a while. They had to try not to drop the instrument as they danced while they played. I think they were good dancers while playing. The pirates wanted to be rich, but at the end they really wanted to marry the girls--but not to be rich but because they loved them I guess.

The Modern Major General was Matt Kahler. He did a good job because when he sang he really sounded pretty funny. And I love that--when people sing funny. There was a song called “The Modern Major General” and he was singing about how he was a modern major general. It was real rocking, and it was real funny. It was really fast. I think it would have been very hard for him to sing so fast--but that is only a hypothesis.

I think this play should be for ages 5 and up because there is some stuff about killing but I think 5 year olds will be old enough for that. People that like pirates, hula dances, singing, and fast-singing hilariousness would like this play. The play was great because it was really funny, and I like funny things. It was more fun than just a play that you just got to sit down at. The people that go to see this should be prepared for threatening to die (not to themselves but just to a character). They should love it because it is a great play.


Photos: Paul Metreyeon

Re-piew of a Preview of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

I saw a preview of Spider-Man so I am calling this a Re-piew. It is not a review, it is a Re-piew. A preview is that they haven’t made the whole show yet. It was in NEW YORK CITY!

Once upon a time I went to a preview, and it was called Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. It was fighting at some parts and not fighting at parts. And sometimes confusing, and sometimes scary, and sometimes weird. I liked the funny parts and I liked the confusing parts quite a bit. The music was good--almost all the people were singing during the music. It was kind of rocking and kind of sad-ish.

Spider-Man was played by Reeve Carney. I met him afterwards, and I got his autograph. It was awesome. I think he did a really good job playing Spider-Man. He did a good job swinging, and he wasn’t scared. And a good job grabbing things and a good job talking like something bad was actually happening. What his emotion was in the play made me feel the emotion. Peter Parker was the secret identity of Spider-Man. The person that played Spider-Man also played Peter Parker. I liked the character of Peter Parker quite a bit because he doesn’t always have to have a good time because he is a super hero. Ones that are treated nicer--then they can be happy all the time. Usually super heroes are treated nicely in their secret identity, but Peter Parker isn’t. Batman is very rich, but he has had a very sad life, and his parents died, and he hates Christmas because his parents died on Christmas. And Batman is kind of like Peter Parker a little bit because his parents died at a very young age and Peter Parker’s uncle died when he was very young for his uncle to die.

Arachne (America Olivo) was like Arachne from the story of Arachne. It is a Greek story, a spider story, and a told story. She was a spider and she turned into a human at the end. She wanted life and freedom. She is in Peter Parker’s dreams. They wanted to put her in the play because they wanted to show Peter Parker’s dreams. It makes it like he is in love with Arachne but he is actually not in the story. That was not very clear to the audience. Her songs and dancing were cool, and she robbed a shoe store. I liked how she robbed the shoe store.

The Green Goblin (Patrick Page) was scary in his costume, and he had a mask or face-paint. I think it was face paint because then how could you see his mouth move? And he had spikes on the outside of his costume on his shoulders. They were like shoulder spikes. It was pretty awesome. He did a good job playing the Green Goblin. Everyone clapped after his song which was very funny because it was about destroying New York. And then he said “Thank you, thank you very much” even that nobody in the play was actually supposed to be listening--which was so hilarious.

Mary Jane (Jennifer Damiano) sang some songs with Peter Parker. For one song they were actually singing the same thing that everybody else on stage was singing. It was called “No More”--they were singing about that their life was so hard. Her performance was awesome, but her part that was made was not as good as she was acting--like she was doing a better job playing that than the part was.

J. Jonah Jameson was played by Michael Mulheren. J. Jonah Jameson was against Spider-Man. I have no idea why he was against Spider-Man. But he should be against the Green Goblin, but he had no problems with the Green Goblin. He thought the Green Goblin was the hero and Spider-Man was the villain because Spider-Man was destroying things so he could save people. It was awesome because he acted like he hated Spider-Man, but the actor actually likes Spider-Man quite a bit because why would he ask to be in the musical if he really hates Spider-Man?

These are some of my favorite scenes. There was this scene where Peter Parker was fighting with the kids that didn’t like him after he got his super powers. So he like came in and like punched two back and they were like hovering in the air in the back with their mouths open like aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh! There was like a part in the scene where at the end everyone was hovering in the back like aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh! And Flash Thompson ran away because he was very scared because he didn’t expect Peter Parker to have all these super powers. It was kind of funny. Peter Parker was strong and it was cool. I didn’t think they would be hovering in the back like aaaahh!

There was this part where Spider-Man was fighting with Green Goblin, and he was flying around in circles, and Green Goblin scratched at the people at the top, and we were at the top, and it was very very scary. And then when Spider-Man came off from flying and webbing everywhere, and then when he was walking to go through the door, a kid who was sitting in the balcony chased after Spider-Man. It was very weird.

Peter Parker was bouncing off the walls in the song and scene called “Bouncing Off the Walls.” It was very cool. The scene was cool, and he was like bouncing off the walls, and his house looked like it was falling apart. Some people were holding on to his house so it looked like it was falling apart. He woke up and then he just started bouncing off the walls because he had his super powers. I wish I was in that scene because it was so AWESOME. And I’ll sing the lyrics: “Bouncing off the wa-aa-aalls! Bouncing off the wa-aa-aalls! Bouncing off the wa-aa-aalls! Bouncing off the wa-aa-aalls! Bouncing off the wa-aa-aalls! Bouncing off the wa-aa-aalls!” They actually do it more than six times--more than one hundred, like a trillion. I said it six times so you would be prepared to be annoyed.

There were some scary things that were in the play. There were villain projections that were very scary. I think that they wanted children to come see it, but they made it too scary for children. The ugly pageant was great. The ugly pageant was whoever was the ugliest of the villains winned the ugly pageant. They should have done more stuff like that because the projections were scarier than the ugly pageant.

It was confusing that it looked like Peter Parker was marrying Arachne instead of Mary Jane because he asked Mary Jane to marry him. But then it looked like he was marrying Arachne. It was very confusing because everybody thought Arachne was only in his dreams.

I think this should be for ages 8 and up. It was very scary. You would have to go on a very long plane trip to get there, so be prepared to be bored for a second on the trip to New York and to be bored for some of the play, but most of it will not be boring luckily. People that like Spider-Man and super heroes and villains and violence and kissing would like this play. I think people should go see it because it is fun and hilarious in some parts, and be prepared to be scratched by the Green Goblin if you are in the balcony. ( And watch out for super villains.)