Review of Babes with Blades' Witch Slap!

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Witch Slap. It was by Jeff Goode and it was directed by Delia Ford. It was about a Crone (Kimberly Logan) who has an apprentice named Novella (Loren Jones) and she's trying to teach her, but then she finds out about the witch trials and then she really freaks out. Then she calls a meeting of all the witches and there is a fortune teller named Jezebella (Alison Dornheggen) and a vampire-esque witch named Minerva (Stefanie Johnsen). And then three people without magical powers show up named Sylvia (Patti Moore), Goody Blunt (Morgan Manasa), and Window Gumdrops (Jennifer L. Mickelson). I can't tell you what the Crone really wants because that would give away the entire plot. This play is about relationships, how you can love someone but then suddenly hate them, leadership, and power, but they still make it a funny show.

Jezebella was my favorite character. She was a really funny character because when you think of witch you don't exactly think of fortune-teller, but they made it work. I liked how she had a different relationship with each of the witches. She kind of didn't like the Crone and she thought Novella was a crybaby and she didn't like being bossed around by Minerva because they had been teacher and student and one night they kind of started to like each other. She is a big part of the story. I didn't understand all of her decisions, but most of them. She didn't really want to be there because she didn't like any of the people there. And she didn't want to be abducted by the Crone. She just wants to go back and not be killed and she wants her house to be safe.

The fighting (violence design by Maureen Yasko) was really cool and fun because it wasn't too cheesy. But it also still showed that they were witches having a fight because they mostly used magical powers. I liked the sword-fighting with the brooms and how they kind of tried to overpower each other with the other person's broom. I really liked it how they went up on the ceiling some of the time and used it like monkey bars. I did feel like the gun was overused because it was there all the time and you knew that was what Goody Gumdrops would use. I think that Babes with Blades always has great fighting!

I thought it was cool how they made it seem like magic was really happening, like when they got down the bottles and they would zap them down. I also liked it how the cat looked like it was jumping down even though it was obviously stuffed; that made it really funny. I also liked it how they toyed with the idea of the witch making a brew but then it was just minestrone or stew or stuff like that.

I liked it how one of the characters turns into a zombie and so she's just kind of talking nonsense a lot of the time. It was also how she moved. She moved exactly like a zombie. Before she was very serious and never seemed like she would have a good time, but then she is almost always smiling when she's a Zombie. Her eyes look very bloodshot and very wide. I thought that was really funny because she also has blood dripping from her mouth and she walks around like a zombie and is going really slow all the time, but she is always very enthusiastic about everything when she's a zombie. That's funny because when you think of the word enthusiastic you don't think of a zombie; you think of a four-year-old kid or something. She portrayed the role of the zombie perfectly.

People who would like this show are people who like magic, craziness, and zombies. I think people will have fun at this show. My whole family went and we all had a good time. I'm really looking forward to the next Babes with Blades show.

Photos: Steven Townshend