Review of Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch at Lifeline Theatre

"Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch was a great experience for me.  It was a great experience for me because it was really fun, and you got to do stuff you don't usually get to do in plays--like sit on the stage (and I will talk more about that later).  And you got to yell out answers to one of the actors.  You get to get  love notes from the actors.  They are not actually like love love notes, but they are notes that are like for Valentine's Day. The show was really funny at some parts, really sad at some parts, and sometimes it was really hilarious, and sometimes it was really mellow.

The set was very surprising.  They said you can go have those seats right there, and I said "What? We're sitting on the stage?!" Sitting on the stage was kind of scary because the actors are really close. I liked sitting on the stage, too.  Even if it was kind of scary I liked it.  It was really fun how we got to sit on the stage.  The actors were up on the stage and not up on the stage.  They were in the other audience.  It was more like a famous theater that was after Shakespeare but before us.  If you don't know about Shakespeare you can learn it from me--ADA GREY!  Shakespeare is a Elizabethan playwright that was really great and he wrote Romeo and Juliet, but he didn't write Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch.  I thought the person who wrote Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch was not as good as Shakespeare, but she was really good.  Her name was Frances Limoncelli.  She just wrote the play based on the book, but she didn't write the book.  Eileen Spinelli is the person who did the book.  They were both really good.

There were only four actors in the play.  And they all played different parts except for the person who played Mr. Hatch (Michael T. Downey).  He only played one part because he had such a big part, and since he got the biggest part he didn't need to play another character.  His performance I thought was really funny and sad.  And mostly he was funny, not mostly he was sad, but sometimes he was a little melancholy.  When he was happy I felt a little more happy, and when he was sad I felt a little more sad.  I think the actor was kind of trying to make the audience feel the way the character felt, and I thought that was good.  And it made me feel good that I was one of the people that was feeling good with him. Mr. Hatch's performance was great.

Sara Sevigny played Mrs. Weed, Co-worker #1 and Mr. and Mrs. Dunwoody.  Mr. and Mrs, Dunwoody you didn't actually see all of their body; you could only see their head and arms because maybe Sara was dressed like her main character, Mrs. Weed, and they didn't want you to see that when she was playing Mr. Dunwoody because she was in a dress!  Mr. and Mrs. Dunwoody were really funny because like the things they said like "What do you think Mrs, Dunwoody?" and she would come out in a bonnet.  And I thought that was really funny. So funny.  The co-workers were kind of nice to Mr. Hatch when they realized he wanted to give them a chocolate and then they realized that he was really nice.  Mrs. Weed had a little dog named Ruffy. It was a puppet.  She made the voice, and she had her hand inside.  And  it must have been animatronical marionette because it was like running when she was actually not moving.  Mrs. Weed was pretty funny at some parts like when she made Ruffy chase the mailman.  I've seen Sara before and she was in The League of Awesome.  I thought she did a good job, and she had a good part, and she had to wear a funny dress in The League of Awesome.

Tuckie White was really fun, and she had to go on a see-saw that was almost too small for her.  It was really small so it would look like a kid's see-saw.  Her different parts were named Tina Finn, and she also played Melanie Todd, and she also played Ms. Smith.  Melanie Todd was younger than Tina Finn.  She did a good job playing different ages, and she did a good job pretending to sneeze because it sounded like she was actually sneezing. She did a great job doing everything she had to do in the play.

Micah J. L. Kronlokken, he played three different parts.  He played Mr. Goober and that character was a mailman.  And he also played Co-worker #2 and a person who sells meat, Mr. Todd.  When he did his parts I thought he did a really good job because then when he heard what Mr. Hatch said ("I'll go pick up your daughter which is Melanie Todd") he seemed really surprised.  And when he asked Mr. Hatch to give him the gift he sounded really sad and then he had an idea that he would make him happier.  We said something that made him feel better because Mr. Goober told us to, and you usually have to listen to the actor if he says something.

The "Good Neighbors" scene was also a song, and it was a fun song, and I have heard it before in the car on my disc of different kinds of plays.  The show was kind of better when you actually got to see it and not just hear it.  My favorite part of the song is the confusingest part when they are all singing all together.  They are singing about all the things they were singing about before like gardening, and good neighbors, and cooking for their neighbors, and lots of good things about neighbors.

The scene where Mr. Hatch gets the package he was sitting down, and then he heard the doorbell ring, and he looked at the doorbell and was like "Huh?" because he didn't know who it was and he didn't even know the sound of his doorbell because he didn't get any packages that much and people almost never came to visit him.  Then it ding-donged it again, and he was like "What? Again?"  And then he realized it was his doorbell. So funny.

People that would like this play are people that like books, funny things, sad things, and Valentine's Day.  I recommend that people see it a few times because I loved it.  I think this play should be for ages three and up because it doesn't have any scary parts.  It does have some sad parts, but I think it would be ok for three year olds because it is very happy at the end.  It tells you about people--that just because they are stubborn it doesn't mean they are bad.  When you do good things to people if they have treated you badly they will start to do nice things to you like give you presents, and get you tickets for shows, and get you ice cream. The end.



Photos: Suzanne Plunkett

Review of Peter Pan: A Play at Lookingglass Theatre

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called...it is one of the greatest books of all and it has a Walt Disney movie of it...Peter Pan!  The story is about a little boy that didn't want to grow up, and he takes some kids that had to grow up--he takes them to Neverland.  I do believe in fairies, luckily.  Because you have to believe in fairies or one fairy will die.  It is at Lookingglass.  The stories and the plays that they do are kids' books, but the shows there are more for grownups than for kids.  I've seen Alice in Wonderland there.  Once I had to go out of the whole entire theater there because a knight went into the audience.  I was younger then.  I did not want to leave the theater during this play.

Tinkerbell was played by Aislinn Mulligan.  She was good at playing Tinkerbell.  She had to dingle a bell and hold up a green light.  The person who played Tinkerbell was not like Tinkerbell in the two movies I saw.  Tinkerbell was like a blond little fairy in a green dress and in the other movie she was like a green light that dingled.  But in this play she was actually not just a light; she was a girl too.  She was like choking out her words when she drank the poison.  I felt kind of sorry for her.  She like talked to other characters only at one part, and Peter Pan explained what she was saying at the beginning--most of the time. I liked her a little bit more than the other Tinkerbells that I saw.

Nana was played by Royer Bockus.  She did a good job, and she had to talk because she didn't want to just bark.  Nana was also in both movies that I saw.  This one she didn't have to dress up exactly like a dog.  How she wore a bow was a little bit doggish.  She talked in her regular voice and didn't bark, but that was kind of cool how she didn't bark at all. There was this funny scene where Nana said "Who wants to be first on the toothbrushing train?" And then John says "I do! I do!"

Wendy went on an adventure with Peter Pan and her two brothers.  The person that played the part was Kay Kron.  I thought she did a good job playing Wendy because she had to be hanged from lots of stuff.  I liked how she had to fly very very high and she had to fly in the dark--that looked pretty hard.  She is trying to make a good mother for the lost children.  She is pretty young to be a mother, and she's pretty excited about it because she didn't know she would get to be a mother so soon.  She learned at the end that it is fun to pretend to be mothers but it is more fun to really be a mother.  She feels a little sad that Peter Pan is taking her daughter Jane (Sarah Fornace)--but she also feels kind of happy. Jane did a good job and she actually in the play was really good at being like a kid.  She pointed at something, and then she would just say what it was, and then she would smash it with the pillow. I thought that was so cute.

John and Michael were played by Jamie Abelson and Alex Weisman.  At a funny part they set out breadcrumbs, and John said "These breadcrumbs will lead us home." And then right behind him Michael was and he was eating all the breadcrumbs.  And he was actually eating them I thought!  They had to fly in the dark with Wendy, and if they fell they couldn't get up until that part was up.  They seemed like they didn't know how to fly already, but they did know how to fly a bit because Peter Pan told them.  And the funny thing was that Michael dropped a few times right over the raging river and he said "AAAAAH, raging river!!"

The lost boys were named Tootles (Nate Trinrud), Nibs (Kareem Bandealy), Curly (Kelley Abell), and Slightly (Matt Holzfeind).   Curly was played by a girl.  I knew it because of her name in the program.  She had to climb out of this dusty thing, and she wore this outfit that was a little bit big for her.  And she wore this beret and a green top and a kind of puffy long sleeves under it.  I thought that was cool.  She said "I am NOT a girl and I always raise my hand when Peter Pan asks a question." That was pretty cool and funny.  Nibs was good and he wore a cap and he got captured by the pirates once but Peter Pan saved him.  Nibs was pretty funny because, when Wendy and Peter Pan were dancing, he got out a little tiny hilarious cat kind of clock that made music.  And it went like ding ding ding ding ding ding--it only went ding. Slightly touched one of my fairies that I brought to the show.  The lost boys did the Peter Pan dance and then Slightly made a sound like this: pe-uurrrh.  That was supposed to indicate shutting down.  I thought it was really funny.  Tootles was the youngest one of them, and he wore like a funny little dinosaur cape.  He had to shoot a gun even though he was the youngest. But not a real one--noooo not a real one.  They did a gun instead of a arrow because if you shoot an arrow if you want it to look real it has to be a real one.  He was kind of funny because he was trying to kill himself, but then he jumped off a place and he said "that didn't work," and he did it over and over again. 

And the lost person who was the lost girl was played by Ericka Ratcliff.  Her name was Lily.  Lily dies in the play, but she did come back out later in the play because she was pushing things around.  I don't remember a lost girl in the movie or the book but I think she was based on Tiger Lily.  Tiger Lily is an Indian Princess who is there in Neverland. There was a part where she said that grownups always lie to you, but I didn't think so.  She could take care of herself good; she just forgot about what she thought about mothers.  They put on a speaker that she was forgetting about the whole thing.  

Captain Hook was sometimes kind of funny--he was really funny at some points.  There is a funny part where he says "Planning music, please."  I saw another Peter Pan play that had similar planning music.  Captain Hook was played by Thomas J. Cox. Captain Hook had to climb a lot of things.  He was good at the climbing because he had to like climb really fast.  I think he was a good Captain Hook. Even though I know it was just a play, sometimes I was a little scared, but I thought he did a good job acting it. Then when we heard Captain Hook's story we started to love him too.

Smee lost her girl, and she was looking for it ,and she was calling for her, so she was saying "Honey, it'smee."  She was saying "Honey, it's me," so Captain Hook decided to call her Smee because that was what she was calling herself. Captain Hook just decided she would be a good pirate.  She was played by Molly Brennan.  She was also in Animal Crackers and she played Harpo.  I like the Marx Brothers a lot, and I thought she did a really good job at it.  She was kind of like the Smee I thought she would be.  I thought she was going to be loving, kind of, after you heard her backup story--because in the movies Smee was kind of loving, and  this Smee was kind of loving too.  We felt sorry for her because she couldn't find her daughter.  She loved the babies so much because she really wanted to be someone's mother because she missed her daughter so much.

Raymond Fox played Mr. Darling and one of the Pirates.  I know him and I know his daughter too and we have lots of playdates together.  The Pirate that he played was sort of scary but he wasn't the scariest one.  Mr. Darling was kind of angry at some parts but not all the time.  It was kind of funny because he was so angry about the tie, which is actually not that big a deal.  At the beginning of the show all of the characters came out, then Mr. Darling as a kid picked me up, and I turned on a light.  I thought that was cool.  And when he held out his arms I was like, "what?"  But then I was like" ok, I'll do it."  But then he lifted me up, and I was not expecting that.  I expected something not so high up.  I was a little afraid, but I knew it was going to be alright because it was Raymond and I knew he wouldn't try and drop me. And I'm glad that he wasn't dressed like a pirate because I would have freaked out because that was a real scary costume and I would not have let anyone that was dressed like that pick me up because then I would have been like "gulp-aaaaaah!" The gulp is when you swallow when you are so scared.

When the Pirates came out was kind of scary.  Because when they came out they came out in the middle of nowhere and the Clown (Adeoye) just came out first and he didn't look that scary because nobody was actually looking at the dagger necklace.  Not even me.  They came out of the curtains and this lady had like long long claws that looked really sharp and real.  And there was one that was like all black with a helmet on.  The looked scarier than just like striped shirts and pants and pirate hats because they wanted it to be a little more scary than the usual Peter Pan is.  It was supposed to be more of a grown-up play, and it was supposed to be unexpected, and it was very unexpected.

Mrs. Darling was played by Amy J. Carle.  She had to help Mr. Darling put on his tie and you saw big shadows there.  When Wendy, John, and Michael came home to their beds, she thought she was dreaming but then she wasn't.  I thought it was kind of emotioning and I thought it was very cute.  When they just started doing like a big hug, I started crying.  Tears started rolling down my cheek and down to my finger--which is not that far--and then it dropped.  She actually thought that she was dreaming, and then she just created a big hug, and I thought that was kind of touching.

Peter Pan was played by Steve Lenz.  He was a really good Peter Pan I thought because he could fly really well and he could do lots of cool stuff like he could actually make a realish-fake emotion. Like when he was angry he really looked really angry.  I loved the scene where he taught them how to fly.  I also liked where Tinkerbell took the poison medicine.  The medicine was really actually water or maybe they weren't drinking anything at all--which would be better than using real poison.  Peter's emotion was very sad during that part.  When everybody in the whole entire theater started clapping he said, "NO!  That makes it worse!" We were supposed to laugh and giggle and hahahaha. 

There was a fight scene with Peter Pan and Captain Hook and it was really dangerous because they were walking on something that was moving and not that stable. And people were pushing it around and if those people had fallen off all of them could have broken their heads.  They tried to make it be scarier so nobody could believe these people were actually doing it.  It was cool how much they had to climb and some people had to fly during it.

This should be for ages 4 and up because my friend Nora has seen it and she is 4 and she didn't think it was that scary. People that like sword fighting, cool things, scary things and things that go up really high and bright things and being in the dark would like this play.  I do not like being in the dark, but I liked it anyway.  It was a really awesome version of the Peter Pan play.  

Photos: Sean Williams
  

Review of Redmoon Winter Pageant

Once upon a time I went to a show, and it was called the Redmoon Winter Pageant.  And it was a good show.  It was about a band that were very old now and they used to be in a band and now they are not because they are so very old.  The people that played them were actually pretty young.  They wore wigs and they moved like old people.  The characters that are in the band are Winter, Spring, Fall, Summer, and Rita.  When we came in you could make like shakers to shake at the beginning.  That was pretty cool.

Winter was played by Carly Ciarrocchi and she was the main season or why was it called the Redmoon Winter Pageant?  She played the guitar and it was sometimes red and sometimes blue.  So she played two different kinds of guitar—one of them kind of looked like a bass guitar.  And she sang a song by herself, and it was shadow puppets behind her, and it was about going on tour.  The performance was good because she actually acted like she was a little scared when she sang her song.  And it was great because then it actually felt like she was actually singing a song that she wrote, but she actually didn’t write it, I know.  Misha (Mikhail Fiksel), who works at my dad’s theater, he did the composing.

Spring was played by Felicia Bertch.  There was this song called “Millions of Bubbles,” and she had like a tiny little kid costume on that was not exactly like a kid costume but it was tiny, small and had little tiny feet and arms.  And it only had like little tiny shorts.  They were golden.  Everybody had something that was golden on in the song.  And Winter and the girl that played Rita were both little girls in little tiny little costumes too.  The song was really funny.

Fall was a boy (Alex Knapp) and he sang a song called “Apples in Space.”  And I got to shout out something, and I said “corn.”  He was like the one who went in a walker and he paid for it—like he got out fake coins and put them in a box kind of thing and then he went inside to talk about the box. And it was funny because he was like bloop bloop bloop when he put the invisible coins in.  The song was fun because there was a piece of paper that went around and came back--like a story about in space. 

Summer was a boy (Eric Prather) too.  I have no idea why they had Summer to be a boy because Summer is actually a girl’s name.  He was the only person who actually wore glasses, and he had very white hair, and he had a cane.  His song was called “Surf Detective” and the detective wore glasses.  And he surfed and found stuff that were lost.  His performance was sometimes very funny.

Rita was played by Kasey Foster and she was the lead singer of the band.  And she wore a wig that was like toppled up and was white.  She was the seasons’ mom.  She didn’t want to start up the band because she felt like she was a little too old.  Her performance and her singing was good because she had to sing in that voice—in the voice that sounded like her character.  That was a pretty hard voice.  There was this scene where Rita was dancing and she said “turn that down” and it was funny because she was dancing to the music that she didn’t want to be on.  And that was really funny. 

The scene where they were all looking at the box was funny.  So they drank…and they looked at the box…and they drank again.  It was one of my favorite funny things.  That scene had all the seasons in it and even Rita, and they were actually in Rita’s house.  It was supposed to be like a tv show because of the laugh track, and there are usually not laugh tracks in plays.  They were trying to tell you what kind of comedy they were doing, which is kind of a kids’ comedy.  I didn’t like the laugh track that much in the play because I don’t like it in comedy shows and I don’t like it in tv shows either.

Sometimes when I am watching plays I kind of think I am at home, and then when I look up at the play then I actually realize that I am not at home.  And it happened twice at this show.  It says that the show was a little bit calming at some parts.  But some parts were not actually that calming—like they were very like rock and roll and funny.  And then they weren’t actually that calming but sometimes they were.

This show is for ages 1 and up because I saw like a one-year-old there and she laughed during the show—like hahahahaha.  People that like funny stuff and bands would like this show.  See you at my next review.  Bye.

Photos:  G. Thomas Ward Photography