Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called The Silent Language. The Silent Language is about a man named Gasho the Poor (Max Lotspeich) and he was trying to rescue a princess (Carolyn Molloy) who was captured by an evil Elf (Aaron Lawson). And the Elf was best friends with the Boogeyman (Sean Ewert). It is called The Silent Language because that's what he wanted for a wish for saving the snake princess (Molloy). The silent language is where you can understand any animal language. You can also hear what trees and grass whisper. This is a useful thing for him because otherwise he would't be able to save the princess because the birds said, "You should go rescue the princess." It is about how you should never give up because Gasho keeps going when the Elf tries to hurt him. It is also about how you should try to understand people and also nature and not be like, "I can't understand and I won't even try."I am going to put two things in this paragraph. One thing that is scary, and then I will make you feel better by telling you about one of the funniest things in the show. They both have to do with things that happen when you can't see the actors that are doing these things. So, close your eyes and imagine you are sitting in your chair during a play. You see that three of the actors are looking behind you and shivering. You turn around and you see the shadow of the Boogeyman behind you. You will start to panic. Then, when he jumps out, you are relieved that he has finally come out. You think for a second, "I don't want my feet to be eaten by the boogeyman," so you pull up your feet as close to you as possible so until the Boogeyman leaves the stage (and maybe longer) you will have your feet up there. It was cool that it was scary. Now, here is the part I think you are going to find funny. When you walk in, there is just this guy (Lotspeich) playing the guitar. When it finally starts, you can hear from backstage the words "Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk!" It is funny because you can just hear a bunch of honks coming from backstage and you have no idea what the source of them is. I think the director (Jacqueline Stone) made the decision to do things from backstage so that it would be mysterious. Mysterious is funny, scary, and both!
And then you will find out what the source of that honk-honk-honking about is. It is two geese (Angela Bullard and Ewert) and they were both wearing very fancy clothes and just honk-honking. You cannot understand the geese at first, until Gasho learns the silent language. I thought that these geese might have been some of my favorite characters because they were so hilarious.
I though the costumes (by Branimira Ivanova) were really really great. I liked the Snake's costume because it looked so much like a snake, and I also thought it was very graceful and pretty, like a snake should be. The Princess's costume looked casual, until you got to her hair. It was made out of yarn, but she was still pretty. Her hair was cool. When it said Elf in the program, I thought, "oh he's just supposed to be a Santa elf or something." The costume showed me that he was a very evil guy because he had this crown that was all twisted and like horns. There was also a frog costume that was basically just a Chinese hat with rope eyes on it. And then the Frog (Aaron Lawson) said, "You should go and ask the Learned Frog," and then they went down and the same frog hopped up and he had a monocle! I thought how he just changed was so funny.
There was a scene where Gasho was just by his home. He had just learned the silent language, and then he could hear these birds talking. There was a little bird (Jaimelyn Gray) and then the mother bird (Laurie Larson) came in. I liked this scene because the baby bird and the mama bird actually started him out on his quest by telling him about the evil elf and about the beautiful princess. And then he fell in love with the princess before he even knew what she looked like really. If you were to say that she was a princess who could not do anything and was so helpless, that would be very very not was she is. She was a princess, but she didn't faint into people's arm every single second. And she did help in the fight. At the very end, she does faint into his arms, but not because she is weak but because that's what the story tells the princess to do. I suspect that Gasho might teach her how to sword fight and stuff.
Boy. Fig. Bun. Sorry, I was just doing magic, and that is what this paragraph is about. Not about me doing magic, but about a real sorceress (Larson) doing magic. She used three-letter-word magic. You just say three-letter words and the magic will happen. I have been trying this; that is why the beginning of this paragraph sounded like that. Three-letter words are magic because you need three to do a lot of things. You can make a shape with three lines, but you can't make a shape with two. That's just two lines! You go from something that is not all joined to something better, all joined together. The connections that you can have with family and friends can be magical. Just saying three-letter words can make you feel like you're doing magic.
I always thought that the Boogeyman was just a big bag of things that had bugs inside of it because I saw The Nightmare Before Christmas. But this Boogeyman was way way way scarier because he had this giant nose and he kind of looked like an evil snowman. Not that I'm scared of evil snowmen. I was scared of his nose and his hair which was all knotted and tangled. His nose look like a giant wrinkly old carrot, and he was wearing this top hat, and he had a deep scary voice. You shouldn't really be scared of him because the actor who plays the Boogeyman's first line is "honk." And he is also known as a goose. Nobody is really scared of a goose, and he is just an actor. I was enjoying being afraid. It was kind of fun to be afraid, but also, kind of scary. The Boogeyman was kind of funny still because he said, "Whisper my horrible boo. 'Boo!'" And he just said it with this lack of enthusiasm which sounded super super funny.
People who would like this show are people who like three-letter-word magic, fairy tales, and learned frogs. I think this show should be for ages exactly 8 and up. I think I was just ready for it. This show is Big! Fun! And! Awe! Sum!
Photos: Anthony Robert La Penna
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