Review of The Hunting of the Snark in Hugen Hall at Strawdog Theatre Company

Once upon a time I went to show and it was called The Hunting of the Snark. It was about a crew of a ship. They were trying to find a kind of monster called a snark. It is a nonsense play, a tragedy, and also a comedy. It is basically a play of the poem by Lewis Carroll, also known as the writer of Alice in Wonderland. Most of the words in the play are said in the poem, but not every single one: like there was a pop song called "Sail" that was probably not invented in the nineteenth century. This show is funny, crazy, and all the actors seem to be having a great time.

It was cool and funny when the Bellman (Michael Mercier) had a speech and he was showing a map to everybody, but it was blank. And it was super funny when they turned it around and were like "ta da!" but it was still blank. And then they twisted it so it was kind of in a wet towel shape; then everybody was like, "Yay! That's an actual map now," but it was still blank. When the Bellman made his speech, they did a quote from Julius Caesar, which was, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears." It wasn't exactly an appropriate quotation. They are saying "people who live in Rome," but none of the people on the ship probably lived in Rome. They probably all lived in Britain or America. But it is appropriate because some of them are friends, like his Beaver (Julia Meese), which is his pet, and countrymen--I suspect some of them might have come from the country. But the Romans part is just out of line. And I'm also not sure if they really wanted to cut off their ears. Ba dump shish!

There was a fit in the play called "The Beaver's Lesson." I know it might be a little deceiving that it is just called the Beaver's lesson, when it is actually the Beaver and the Butcher's (Casey Pilkenton) lesson. They learned that they should be friends and they should have liked each other before. I really liked this scene because there was this one part in the scene where these glowing eyes came out. They were supposed to be the eyes of the jubjub. I thought that the eyes were very interesting because they were made out of very simple materials but it was so amazing how they used them and they actually made them scary. I thought the scene was really funny because all the Butcher and the Beaver could do, when the eyes came out and were looking at them, was look terrified. The lights went out, and the Butcher said, "What is going on?" which I thought was super funny. She just had this look of shock which was awesome.

There was a really funny part of the play when they were all sleeping and snoring and the Bellman rang a bell in the ear of the Broker (Suzanna Ziko) and then she woke up and the Bellman said, "Now you wake up that other guy." And then when that other guy woke up, that guy told another guy to wake up. And so on.

I thought it was really funny when the Baker (Sarah Rose Graber) came on with 6 coats on and three pairs of boots so she was very much prepared except that she had forgotten everything else she had on the beach! And she has also forgotten her n-a-m-e. The main character is her because she has most of the interesting stuff happen to her. Like she is the only one who actually gets to meet a snark. But that is all I am going to say because I don't want to give away the ending.

People who would like a show called The Snark
Are people who like ships and soap
And railways shares, eyes that glow in the dark
Beavers, boojums, Lewis Carroll, and hope.

Photos: Kyle Hamman