Review of Cat in the Hat (Emerald City Theatre at Broadway Playhouse)

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called The Cat in the Hat. The Cat in the Hat is a play based on a book by Dr. Seuss about Sally (Giselle Vaughn) and a Boy (Michael Richardson) who sit in the house because it is raining and the Cat in the Hat (Danny Taylor) comes in and wants to have some fun. A Fish (Erik Strebig) wants to prevent any fun from happening. And there are two Things (Liam Dahlborn and Lily Dahlborn) who are trying to tear the house apart, but they want to have fun, so you kind of like them. I really liked that this show was very true to the book. Kids' theaters sometimes add in a bunch of extra stupid junk.

I really liked some of the props (designed by D.J. Reed), and some of the props I thought could have been better. I am going to tell you about a few of them. I thought the kites should be real kites, instead they were just foam or cardboard wrapped around a stick. I think that they could have actually gotten real kites and taped them to a really thin cardboard pole in the back. I really liked the fish pot. I thought it was really funny when the Fish spit at the cat and the Cat blew him out of the pot. I really liked the bike because it was a real bike, and I thought it was nice that they used the real thing and not just a fake version. I also really liked the cushion seat that the Cat sat on and made music with.

I wish that the fish (designed by Ken Sprouls) had looked a little bit more like the book, but I still liked the fish puppet's actor. If they had just changed the color to pink I would have been more happy because then it would have looked more like it did in the book. I really liked how the body looked kind of like in the book, but just the color of the fish is what I didn't like.

I really liked it when the fish was dreaming because I knew a lot of those songs and also how the Fish was like lip-synching any song that had to do with the sea. Like "Sail Away" and "Part of Your World," the Ariel song. I really liked when the actor was doing cool tricks like a cartwheel. It was really fun. I thought that he was really persistent like the fish was, and he did a really good job pretending to be like the Fish.

The Boy and the Girl are kind of like the storytellers of the story, but it is mostly the boy in the book and the play. I really liked Sally saying stuff in the show, being another narrator, because in the book it is just the boy narrating. I thought it was nice how they were really hyper because the ages it was aimed at would really like that.

I thought that Thing One and Thing Two were really cute and their laughing was super adorable. It reminded me of what a 5-year-old kid is like in a toy store. They were really really excited and running around everywhere, like hyperventilating basically.

I thought the Cat in the Hat was really funny. There was a part where he kept throwing up different balls, and it came down as a really giant one and he was like "uh" and then he had to give the ball to the boy because it was so heavy. I thought it was really cool how the Cat kept playing music on the tennis racket. Like he played an Irish jig and everybody Irish danced. And also he made rock music with the tennis racket, and everybody was like "Yeah!" Usually, in the t.v. show, the Cat in the Hat is like "I'm so jolly! I'm so jolly!" But here he had a kind of a twist. That twist was that he wasn't so jolly; you felt like he might mess up your house. Sometimes he was a little silly, but he wasn't trying to be totally like for little kids. He was trying to make people who were older also like it, and he succeeded with that by making me like the show.

They say that this is about responsibility, but I don't really think so. I think it is about having fun and cleaning up after yourself. The show should not end on the note that this show is all about being responsible. "Have fun" is basically the moral of the story but also using your imagination. The Fish represents responsibility and he doesn't want them to have any fun because he doesn't want them to do anything that is not normal or make a mess. The Cat represents fun. But he is not completely irresponsible. He wants them to have fun in a kind of destructive way and use their imaginations, but then he cleans up after himself.

People who would like this show are people who like Dr. Seuss, striped hats, and bossy fish. I think this show is for ages 3 and up because it is very interactive and The Cat in the Hat is a book that young kids are probably familiar with. People should go see this show because it is funny and a truthful adaptation of the book.

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