Review of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Chicago Shakespeare

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called A Midsummer Night's Dream.  It was at Chicago Shakespeare. Shakespeare is actually one of my favorite playwrights.  I don't know why; he just does all this great stuff that has to do with life, and death, and hilarity.  If somebody asks, "The words are too hard; why do you like it?" I would say you just need to understand what the story is about. For example, Midsummer Night's Dream is about fairies, love, and comedy.  Shakespeare puts things in a way that people years from then--which is now--they still understand what he means.  He puts his words in a way that is funny, heartbreaking, and romantic.  And in all his plays you just feel amazed.

When the show started, Bottom led a song that said his name sort of.  It went buh buh buh botTOM.  I think it is funny because it had Bottom's name in it.  They switched the first scene with the second scene, so the actors getting together came first before Theseus (Timothy Edward Kane) and Hippolyta's (Tracy Michelle Arnold) meeting with Lysander (Andy Truschinski) and Demetrius (Matt Schwader) and Hermia (Christina Nieves) and Egeus (Kurt Ehrmann). By putting putting some of the funny stuff first, then you don't get the idea that it is going to be a dramatic death with a beautiful young girl dying for her love.  You get that this is going to be a hilarious comedy.

The director, Gary Griffin, disguised Puck (Elizabeth Ledo) as Sigmund Freud who was a psychiatrist and he also was interested in hysteria and the unconscious.  Hysteria is the research of women who have problems with doing things that are not good or appropriate...according to men.  Sometimes men can really not like women. I learned about hysteria from The Hysterical Alphabet which was about hysteria which Sigmund Freud was famous about.  It was made by Terri Kapsalis, Danny Thompson, and John Corbett. The unconscious is like when you do something but you don't know why you are doing it.  It is kind of like Othello.  He didn't know why he was killing his wife, and then he felt guilty and killed himself.  And that's basically the whole story.  It is a dramatic and not healthy story; you should not do what Othello did to himself or to his wife. 

So Sigmund Freud was on stage for awhile, and Helena (Laura Huizenga) was talking to him for a few seconds, and then he stayed on the stage.  Then he took off his hair. Then he took off his mustache.  Then he took off his jacket, and then he took off his pants and his shirt, and he was in his Puck outfit.  And then in big red letters on the screen over Sigmund Freud's picture it said PUCK! They used Sigmund Freud because people acted very weirdly in the play.  For example, the flower is kind of like a hysteria flower because it made Titania (Tracy Michelle Arnold) go bonkers.  She fell in love with a guy with a donkey's head, and that is not very smart.   

You know that Puck is a fairy because he does things that human people cannot do.  For example, he has lady parts and boy parts.  He can fly, is another, because he says "I'll put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes."  I think Elizabeth Ledo did a good job of pretending to be a boy.  She would just smoke this cigar and nod her head and stuff.  And then she would just walk around like a man would.  She just seemed so much like a boy.  And that is a very good thing because if she seems like she is a boy because she is pretending to be a boy that is a good thing.  And I think the director chose it that way because in lots of Shakespeare plays girls are dressed up like boys to get the rights that men would have.

One of my favorite scenes was the scene where the four lovers were fighting.  I liked the scene because it had my favorite lines in it.   When both the boys, Demetrius  and Lysander, were in love with Helena, Hermia gets really angry because they are both supposed to be in love with her, but she only wants Lysander to be in love with her.  The whole thing starts when Helena calls Hermia a puppet because she is shorter.  And then Hermia is really angry because puppet is a mean name--well, it used to be.  Then Hermia calls Helena a painted Maypole.  Then Helena gets super-duper angry. At the end of the scene, Oberon (Timothy Edward Kane) says, "What have you done, Puck?" because he has made Lysander not love Hermia, who is his true love.  After all this dramatic I-don't-love-you-anymore stuff Oberon is like "What have you done!" in such a funny way.

The Changeling Boy played by Matthew Abraham was so cute and so talented for his age.  The Changeling Boy is Titania's little boy who belonged to a good friend of hers, but then that friend died.  And she loved the Changeling Boy so much that she decided she could take care of him very well.  And she does. But then Oberon takes the Changeling Boy from her, but since at the end she loves Oberon again the Changeling Boy is going to be hers again. 

On the second half, the lights come up on Oberon and he says "I wonder if Titania be awaked?" And that is just really funny because we know that Titania hath been awaked and fell in love with a donkey, or in this case, an ass. Puck does some magic on Bottom (Ron Orbach) to make him make some mayhem.  The magic turns him into a donkey and then all the actors are scared away.  Bottom is a part of this weird group that do these regular things for a living, but then they decide that they would try to do a play for the Duke and almost-Duchess.   So, for example, Snug (Richard Manera), who plays the Lion, is a joiner.  And Bottom is a weaver, so he weaves dresses and shawls and stuff. So when they all get together in the first scene, they all are given parts and scripts. Flute (Levenix Riddle), the bellows mender, is given his part, which is Thisbe, who is the lady and beautiful maiden who loves Pyramus so dearly. He doesn't like it because it is a girl's part.

While they are performing "Pyramus and Thisby, a most tragical mirth," most of it is actually a long song.  And I think that is just really hilarious to have them sing because that is not what it usually is in the play.  Thisby sings her lines like the song "Rehab"--and that's a good thing, because that just makes it more funny.  The person that plays Starveling (Rod Thomas) was really funny because when somebody else was talking he would make his puppet dog talk and I thought that was really hilarious.  Tom Snout (Michael Aaron Lindner), the tinker, sang his songs kind of folky, and I think that is a good thing for a wall to sing--folk songs. When Peter Quince (Tim Kazurinsky) came out in the wedding scene, he was really scared to talk to them, so he was like sputtering in the middle of his lines. He was kind of excited because they has been requested. It made me feel like Peter Quince is a very funny person but he can also sometimes be a little scared. 

Mara Blumenfeld did a good job doing the costumes.  I like Titania and Oberon's outfits.  They were super crazy and creative.  And Oberon seemed kind of Indian, which is a cool thing to add. And the fairies' hats were super fun.  For example, Cobweb's hat was shaped like a big spiderweb.  It was really cool.  And Moth's hat was a big green moth hat made out of little moths.  He took out one and put it on the fairy queen so then she could sleep well.  So they are kind of like magical moth things.  And the wedding outfits were robes and long flowing gowns--some of them were pants and some of them were long flowing gowns.  I thought they were very very beautiful and also very cool to look at.

People who would like this show are people that like fairies, hilarity, and hysteria.  This show is different from other Midsummer Night's Dreams because it has Freud in it, is one, and it also has singing.  And it has grown-up fairies.  I think this show should be for ages 4 and up.  Just remind the kids that there is some kissing in it. People should come and see this play because it is funny, exciting, crazy, and it has costume creativity. 

Review of Chicago Children's Theatre's The Houdini Box

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called The Houdini Box. The Houdini Box is about a ten-year-old boy named Victor (Alex Weisman) who is big fan of Harry Houdini (Derek Hasenstab), and when he is at the train station he meets Harry Houdini himself. This boy is an admirer of Harry Houdini, but all his dreams of being a magician and becoming best friends with Harry Houdini are all discarded because Harry Houdini has been taken away from everybody’s life. Even his wife’s life. But it ends with an ending that is not heartbreaking. You feel happy that his dream has finally come true in the way that he didn’t want but it was still a good way.

One of my favorite scenes was the scene where Victor tried to get out of his grandmother’s trunk to be like Harry Houdini. His grandmother’s trunk was locked, and he’d never unlocked it before. Houdini got out of a trunk that was dropped into the water—in less that 20 seconds! When Victor got into the box, the box shook and you could hear “Help, help, please. Somebody? I’m in here!” It is funny that he cannot get out and the box is shaking like in cartoons. I like cartoons, so I thought this was funny. It is kind of funny that the box is shaking, but it is not funny that he is failing to get out. He needs to know that he does not have “magical powers” like Houdini. He doesn’t have any special picks or anything in there.

I liked the scene where Victor was playing with his Harry Houdini doll and was making it do the water torture cell trick. But all he could do was get a honey pot to do the water torture cell trick. And the Barker (Derek Hasenstab) said, “The ONE! The ONLY! Harry Houdini!” and then Harry Houdini the doll came out and was like “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” This scene tells you that Victor cannot actually have the things that Harry Houdini could have. He couldn’t have the real water torture cell or even one that kind of looked like it. It makes you feel sorry for Victor but kind of happy that he likes to pretend that he has things of Harry Houdini’s.

Right before they left for the train station, Victor's mother (Sara Sevigny) tied a rope to his hand and she took him outside. I thought that wasn't exactly how moms are, except for the ones in Cinderella. She wasn't a bad mom, she wasn't evil or anything. She didn't make him do all the housework. She did kind of want the best for him, but it wasn't the best for him because he liked magic. Why doesn't she just let him have magic like he wants? There are no villains in this, and she is not a villain, but you kind of feel sorry for Victor that he can't have magic. Sara also got to play Harry Houdini's wife. Bess is Harry Houdini's wife's nickname, but that is what everyone called her. Even Houdini called her this. She was so nice and so truthful to Victor about Houdini's death. And she is giving him a present of Houdini's and he wanted to give it to him, which was a box that had the initials carved into it: E.W. And E.W. stands for Erich Weiss. I know it looks like it is going to be a w sound, but it is actually a v sound--Veiss. I'm not going to give away the ending, but I will tell you that Erich Weiss is the name of a person who I cannot give away his true identity.

I think the puppets were cool. One of them was the bus that would just move along and the puppets of the Mother and Victor getting on the bus and them getting off the bus, and them getting on the train, and them getting off the train, and them getting to Aunt Harriet’s house. I liked it because they were not like finger puppets, and they were not like hand puppets, and they were not like marionettes. They were like shadow puppets only they had faces and you could see them. And at Aunt Harriet’s house, when the actual actors were playing the parts of Aunt Harriet and Victor and the Mother, they had the dolls that they would talk to Victor with, and I thought that was cool because the dolls were so small and the person was so big that it made them seem like they were Borrowers.

There was one problem with the puppets, which was that there was Victor’s son and he was just a hat, and gloves, and a baseball bat. I didn’t like this because it seemed like Victor's son was some kind of ghost or something. And if you looked at it, you kind of felt sad for Victor because you kind of felt like his kid was dead. They could have gotten an actor to play it or at least a puppet with a face.

The play is based on a book with the exact same name. It is by Brian Selznick. The play did have my favorite part in it, which is a happy part, which is one of my favorite lines. It is not a funny one, just a happy one. And it is “Victor locked himself inside his grandmother’s trunk and escaped...in under twenty seconds.” In the play, he came out of a door in the room that was not connected to the box. It made you feel more happy for him because you actually got to see him escape and come out from somewhere else.

When you walked into the space, you knew it was going to be a good adaptation because the stage looked a lot like pictures from in the book. I liked how the actors could just bring apart the set, and there was a new set, and bring apart the set, and there was a new set, and so on. If you open a book, there will be another page behind it, so it was kind of like opening a book. Each set was like seeing another page. And I would like to say congratulations to Blair Thomas for making such a great set and directing very well and making the puppets good.

There are usually no songs in a book, but sometimes in comic books. I liked a lot of the songs (by Hannah Kohl and Mark Messing) in the play, but one of my favorites was “A Mother’s Day is Never Done” because it kind of showed kids what it would be like if they ever had kids. Victor sings it when he’s older, but this time “A Father’s Day is Never Done.”

In the scene where Victor is saying how "a father's day is never done," there are these things that pop out of the black curtain behind him. One is a work bag, two is a dinner, three is a story, and four is a pillow. And he would say "Work, dinner, story, sleep" over and over again. I liked how he was still straight up but there was a pillow that he would not actually lay down on. They would just bring it up next to his head, and he would close his eyes. He would do things over and over again and never stop; every day was just a regular old day. You feel sorry for him kind of because he never has time to do things that aren't everyday things.

People that like magic, mystery, and puppets would like this show. I think this show should be for ages 3 and up. People should go to this play because it is funny but also suspenseful. It is an awesome adaptation of The Houdini Box, and if anybody is born and misses it, I hope they do a remount.

Photos: Michael Brosilow

Review of The Whiskey Rebellion's Tennyson Spade at Rhinofest 2012

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Tennyson Spade.  A Tennyson Spade is a special lantern that can take you to the Underworld.  I didn't know why they called it a Tennyson Spade, because it is a lantern, but now I kind of think it is because you are kind of digging underground when you use the Tennyson Spade.

The story is about an eleven-year-old girl by the name of Annalee (Tamara Silverleaf) whose little sister had died and she wants to find her sister again.  Her name reminds me of Annabel Lee from Edgar Allen Poe's poems.  I think they named her Annalee because lots of Edgar Allen Poe's poems are about women dying. She looked like she was eleven because she seemed older than me but they talked about having a picnic with their mom and dad.  She meets this man who is really obsessed with tea, and he has never had tea since he was alive because he died in a mine.   And his name is Simon (Cooper Forsman).  The tea is like magical tea because it kind of makes people feel better and stuff.  If you are lonely, the heat is isn't there for you, but if you feel happy like the family in the window that Simon sees, you can get tea. His goal is to see his mother again.  He kind of wants to go and he is kind of resistant to going because he thinks his mother is dead.

The playwright, Jessica Wright Buha,  and Aileen McGroddy, the director, decided to use creepy singing to tell the story.  It made it scarier because it was sung so quietly and sung in a zombie way.  They are not exactly zombies, they are more ghosts, ghost zombies.  The moved around quietly and slowly.  They spoke like the spaciest people in the world.  There were four zombie-ghosts/Lonely Ones: Courtney Kearney, Ellenor Riley-Condit, Monica Thomas, and Lauren C. Virnoche.  They show us what people feel like when they are all alone.

They had sand that they would use and like put it all over the ground.  And then the Lonely Ones and Simon would all try to remember things about where they used to live.  The sand was helping them remember things they could not remember.  The teapot was where the sand came from to help remember the mine.  Maybe it is a magical teapot to help remember things.  They didn't use flower petals or rice because they were underground and there was nothing to eat and nothing grew because it was so cold.  It was like always winter.

It made you think of bad things about death because, if one of your relatives or friends dies, they can never come back.  That makes you feel sad and lonely.  If I had a Tennyson Spade, I would go and find people I knew that had died and see what has happened.  I would want to find them, but I would be scared to go and find them because I would not want them to not recognize me.  Annalee chooses to go and find her sister because she misses her too much to even care if she doesn't recognize her.

The show was kind of confusing for me, because I am only seven.  But I think people that have dead relatives will understand this better. It was good because it had a happy ending.  The beginning was kind of sad, but at the end you felt happy because the warmth had come back.  I think this show should be for ages nine and up.  I can see it because I am a very brave seven-year-old. People that like ghosts, tea, and adventures would like this show.

Photos: Jack Mayer

Review of Opus at Redtwist Theatre

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Opus. Opus sounds like a made up word, but it means a piece of music. I think they called it Opus because they were always working on music. Opus is about a four-string quartet who is getting ready to play for the president. I know it isn't Obama, because Obama is a very great president and the president in the play was not the best president. Somebody isn't there and this nice girl is in place of this man named Dorian (Paul Dunckel). Dorian was not a very responsible person because he has problems, and he didn't really like the music that they wanted to do, so that was really tough for them. They are used to having Dorian there and not Grace (Emily Tate) there. She has to learn the song as fast as she can, but it is not easy to learn a song lickety-split.

I've never been to Redtwist. I think it is a small theater, but a very cozy theater. It makes you feel like you are in a little mouse nook. I felt like I was actually part of the show because we were so close to the stage--and on the stage almost. It makes everybody feel like they are in the show, like they are a certain character watching what is happening.

They didn't really play music. They just faked it because none of the people in show could play the violin as good as the characters in the show. The characters are very talented players. I think it was a good idea to fake, so the actors wouldn't have to learn all the songs and they could spend more time with their child, wife, mother, sister, brother, or husband or something like that. They did do a pretty good job of the faking. Everybody knew they weren't actually doing it, but everybody felt like they were actually playing.

One of my favorite scenes was when the men were talking about their teacher and how good he was because they said a sentence one...word...at...a...time. It was really funny because people actually don't say one...word...at...a...time. The teacher said stuff like, "It is like two bows playing one instrument" in an accent that was kind of Russian but kind of French. And people would just keep saying, "I think the teacher was Russian, I think the teacher was Czech, I think the teacher was Hungarian" because nobody could actually tell what country he was from or city or whatever.

There was a funny scene where Grace came to the practice at Alan's (John Ferrick) house. And she was inside and Alan had not even woken up yet. So he came out in his bathrobe and she was asking why they were all so late. And then she looked at the clock and she said, "Oh my gosh, I'm two hours early!" because she had set her clock wrong for the wrong time. She asked for so many different kinds of tea, like Lemon Zing and Red Zinger, but he didn't have any of them. All he had was something that looks like tea but might have been marijuana or just very very very very bad tea. If she had been drinking marijuana, it would been illegal and she could have been arrested. This teaches you to not drink any sort of drugs because they taste disgusting.

The scene where Elliot (Michael Sherwin) and Dorian were talking about how they met was really awesome and cool because on each side there was one of them and they kept going back and forth telling the same story. Their teacher told them to play a song together and it sounded so beautiful that they became very good friends. They are kind of like brothers, but they are not because they don't have the exact same mother or the exact same father or both. They are like brothers because they know each other for such a long time and they are always together and they are roommates. And being a roommate can make you feel like you are a brother or a sister to someone. But they weren't brother and sister. They were kind of in love, but not exactly because they broke up. I think it was a little sad that they broke up because it actually seemed like they loved each other a lot when they were talking about how they met.

My favorite of all favorite scenes was the scene where all the audience sit and tremble in their seats because they broke a violin. WAH Wah wah. WAH Wah wah stands for not very good at all. When they broke the violin, my mom held my hand as tight as she could. And I felt a little scared myself, even though I am a reviewer, because I have a violin in the house, and I play it, and I do not want to break my very own violin. The violin in the show was so beautiful and shiny and super special because its name was Lazara, the name of the person that made it and of the quartet. I think Carl (Brian Parry) broke the violin because he was dying and he didn't think they could do shows without him. I think he smashed it for three reasons--one I already told you about. Another is because Elliot and Dorian should not have been fighting over a violin that was rightfully Dorian's because he got it himself from one of his mother's friends. They were fighting over the violin because it was so pretty and the sound sounded very nice. The other reason is because they might have given Carl a medicine that would make him go cuckoo because it might make him survive the disease.

I think this show should be for ages 6 and up. People who like string instruments, Beethoven, and drama would like this show. It gives you what practicing actually looks like. People don't usually get to see rehearsals because players (Shakespeare word!) are usually just doing the rehearsals by themselves. It is important because you can understand a show better than you normally can if you go to see the rehearsal and the show as well. It made me understand the show and the music better because they showed you what a rehearsal for Opus the play and Opus 131 the Beethoven looked like by showing what actual rehearsal looks like.

Photos: Christopher Burpee

Ada Grey's Top 5 Plays of 2011

My favorite shows of the year, in alphabetical order:


Burning Bluebeard at the Neofuturarium

I loved Burning Bluebeard because there were lots of different kinds of funniness and lots of different kinds of scariness. It made you feel sad but also made you feel happy at the exact same time. I was sad that all the people died, but I was happy that the actors got to make moonlight.


Cyrano at The House Theatre of Chicago

I think Cyrano was a really awesome show because it had panache! Panache means poetry-ness, and it had a lot of poetry in it, and I like poetry. I also liked it because it had cool fight scenes which included comedy.


The Moonstone at Lifeline Theatre

The Moonstone was a really awesome show, and I saw it three times! I liked the plot which was trying to find a precious stone. Mysteries are one of my favorite kinds of writing because they usually have suspense and, if there is an intermission, you can try to figure out what happened to whatever has been stolen.


Old Times at Strawdog Theatre Company

I loved Old Times because of the mystery in it. In The Moonstone you know what happens at the end; in Old Times you have no idea what happens in the end. The satisfaction of this mystery is that you choose the ending. I like how they transform a big room into a tiny space. You feel like you are really in the room with the characters.


Orlando at Court Theatre

I loved Orlando because it showed the relationship between men and women in different ways than I've seen in other plays. I liked how it was romantic but also kind of touching and hilarious. It think it is cool because it has things that don't happen in real life, but they would happen in a dream.

Review of Chicago Children's Theatre's Goodnight Moon: The Musical!

Once upon a time I went to a show, and it was called Goodnight Moon: The Musical!  It was really awesome because there were these cool dance numbers that were all about different things that were in the room--for example, bears in chairs pop out of the painting in a little hole and the cow jumping over the moon.  It is great for all ages.  Everybody is going to like it because it is so funny.

When the show started Alex Goodrich came out as the Bunny when he was a grownup, and then he saw the book which was Goodnight Moon, and it was the book that his mom and dad read to him when he was a little boy.  It kind of made the grown-ups in the audience remember when they were littler and they were read this book.  It kind of made the kids see what it was going to be like when they were grown ups: that if they were sad, then they would remember happy things that happened when they were younger.

Then the curtain comes up and everybody was really excited about how much the stage looked like the actual great green room.  I think Jacqueline and Richard Penrod were really good at making the set design because it looked exactly like the great green room.  And the pictures looked like the real ones in the book. The balloon looked like the actual balloon in the picture.  But it didn't just hang there; it moved around!  It tried to scare the little old lady whispering hush (Sarah Sevigny). The pictures actually moved around like puppets.  It wasn't exactly like the book, because how can they move around in the book?  It made the play more exciting.  There are three options about how the house is moving and doing crazy stuff.  One: the Bunny is asleep and dreaming.  Two: he is having visions.  Three: he is imagining it.  I hope that he actually goes to sleep because then the old lady, if he wasn't asleep, is being kind of mean because she is just leaving him alone in the room.   I think she should stay in the room with him until he goes to sleep because then he won't worry about her and he won't get into mischief. 

You might fall asleep without knowing about it, but you are still actually asleep; that is what happens in real life when you go to sleep then you dream about waking up and all these weird things happen which aren't actually happening, and then you wake up and you actually waked up.  Once I had a dream where I woke up, and then my mom was pushing a shopping cart inside the house filled with peppers and water.  That is very weird.  Then I actually woke up from the dream, and I thought it was a dream again, but it wasn't because nothing weird happened.  

I thought the part with Claribel the Cow (Sara Sevigny) jumping over the moon was cool because when she actually jumped over the moon she actually jumped over a drum that looked like a moon.  And I thought that was really fun and cool. I really liked the puppets and how one was a dish who was a boy and one was a girl who was a spoon.  The person who was playing those characters was The Dog (Becky Poole).  I liked how the dish and the spoon talked and they sang along with the theme song all the time: "Hey diddle diddle, hey diddle diddle, a-diddly dee." They sounded very different from the dog's voice.  She can do lots of different voices of different things and different people and stuff like that; I think that is a good ability to have because then you can play lots of different kinds of characters as an actor.  Becky also played the Mouse.  The Mouse is the Bunny's best friend.  The Mouse is almost four years old and she thinks lots of things are hilarious when they really are.  She seems like a real friend.  She had a tiny little voice that sounded like a three-year-old talking and she was always making up new things to do.

Aaron Holland did a good job playing the part of the imaginary friend.  I thought it was a really good idea to have an imaginary friend because lots of younger kids have imaginary friends who do crazy stuff.  He did like weird stuff like messed up the bed and ran around in circles in the middle of the night.  I think he was having fun.  When he was the Fire, the Fire and the Bunny kept saying something which was really funny: "Fire Joke!"  They kept saying "Fire Joke!" whenever they did a fire joke.  For example, when Claribel the Cow left, the Bunny said "That cow was sure hot, " and then they were like "Fire Joke!" And then they laugh hysterically.

The Old Lady (Sara Sevigny) I think was really well cast.  She doesn't look like a little old lady, but she is very good at pretending to be one.  She wants the best for her little Bunny.  She wants him to have a great experience tomorrow, when he has to go to school, and she doesn't want him to get bad grades because he is so tired. I have seen Sara in Somebody Loves You Mr. Hatch as Mrs. Weed and I thought she did a very good job in that.  And she also did a very good job in this.  She is always excited and it seems like it is her first day every day that she does the play.  She seems really happy to see everybody at the show because she knows everybody is going to like it.

I thought Alex Goodrich was just hilarious.  For example, when all the things in his room are moving, he is like, "huh?" He always reacts to everything in a way that people actually would feel like if this actual really crazy thing happened to them.  And that feeling feels hilarious.  In all his plays that I've seen, he has always been a fuh-larious character because he is such a funny person. He just makes himself funny by being really expressive with all his body parts.  Like his face makes funny faces; his arms move around with handsaws and stuff.  (A handsaw is like when you put your hand in the air and wave; that is called a hand-sawing motion.  It is like you are like sawing a tree in the air. I got that term from Backroom Shakespeare, and Backroom Shakespeare got that term from Hamlet.)  People can be funny by not being expressive, and people can be funny by being expressive.  I would call what Alex does "expressive comedy." 

The stage, the actors, and the props make this a very good adaptation. They added a bunch of stuff because the book is only one-minute long, and you can't have a one-minute play. Because if something is only one-minute long, what is the point of watching it?  It was a good idea to add all the songs (by Chad Henry) because they weren't just flibber-flabber: they actually had to do something with the book.  The main song is "Goodnight Moon," and it is saying goodnight to everything in the room, just like the actual book. The other songs, they have to do with the paintings that come to life.  I think those songs really have to do with the book because they are kind of like the same things as are in the book.  A song or a picture can tell you stories, either way.

People that like music, animals, and puppets would like this show.  I think this show should be for ages two and up.  I think younger kids would like it because lots of the things in the show happen to younger kids--like not being able to go to sleep.  It is always funny and cute, and there is nothing boring. 

Photos: Michael Brosilow

Review of the Game Show Show...and Stuff! at Mercury Theater

Once upon a time I went to a show, and it was called The Game Show Show...and Stuff.  It was kind of scary because they did these crazy things like drinking a vase full of eggnog in 60 seconds.  It was scary in a fun way.  I enjoyed it because it was kind of like a circus.  Instead of having a sword-eater or a clown or trapeze artist, they had eggnog-drinking, Esteban, and cake stacking.

The Game Show Show is more about succeeding than an ordinary play because it is a game show and not Macbeth. It is some actors and some people from the audience.  The people are doing crazy things because then they got prizes. And if they lost, they would just get candy canes. So nobody is left without a prize.  I thought that was a good idea, because then nobody felt bad. 

I thought the cake stacking was really awesome because they had these cool helmets with plates glued on top of them, and they tried to stack "undescribable cakes" on them.  The undescribable cakes were chocolate cakes with white zigzags on the top and delicious creme inside.  Oh.  I just described it.  I guess I know a lot about delicious cakes when I don't know about it.  So they did it, and neither of them fell down, and then both of them fell down, and they counted them. And the people on the left won.  The stage was covered with delicious creme-filled zigzag cakes.   

Since it was almost Christmas, they decided to do present wrapping as a contest. There were three objects which they had to wrap in different kinds of paper, but the problem was there was only one pair of scissors. One of them used the scissors, and one of them just tore it, and that made it quicker.  The presents actually looked pretty good.  I was rooting for the person who won.  It was really awesome and cool.


All these people that won, they got to dance in the dance contest at the end.  So, they each had a name for the dancers, for example, Sweaty Fish.  I have no idea what that means.  Names like that.  Everybody had a dance partner, and they would dance in different ways, and they would root for them, and whoever got the most screaming won.  It was actually a good way of choosing who won.  Everybody actually spanked each other generally during the dancing, and I thought that was really funny because there was this dance in this cartoon where there was this animal named Pimple and these guys in hoods and you found out that the people in hoods were actually just Betty Boop.  There were all these Betty Boops doing the can can behind them, and then they were like woo hoo ha ha ha as they spanked each other.  I thought that was kind of weird but kind of silly. 

Esteban was a special singer that was a guest star. The first time they introduced him, he didn't come out.  They said "The most amazing singer in the world: Esteban Andres Cruz!" And everybody was cheering super loud, and then he doesn't come out for another act.   I thought that was really funny.  When he comes out--finally--he is in a dress and is climbing around on seats, lip syncing and falling down. That is not what I expected from this guy who played a genie in Sinbad the Untold Tale. I just thought it was kind of funny and unexpected. I can climb over about 9 rows of seats in one minute.  It is fun, climbing over seats.  At the end of the show, Esteban did some rapping.  He was rap-songing. So he was like at the end of a little kids' tv show and he was like "We've learned something new today!" He didn't exactly say this, but it was kind of in this kind of tune.  Kind of like this: "This is the end of our show. We need to go home.  This is the end of our show now."  It was like the grand finale.  

The girls group (Nikki Klix and Ally Oops) sang songs while they were getting ready for other things. The band I see a lot around Strawdog, and they play at late night parties.  I think the band plays really good songs.  The Game Show Show would have been a little less cool without the band; it made it more awesome.

The announcer was JAZ, James Anthony Zoccoli, and the host was Anderson Lawfer.  The thing that everybody had to scream to get to the next game, so then they said "Tumble that thing!"  I thought that was funny because we don't know what that thing is called so we actually just call it a thing.  The thing was this case with papers with names on it, and then JAZ would shout their names and they would come up on stage and ta da! they did something.  Anderson Lawfer seemed like he was in real life because he is actually a very funny person except when he was in one play, Master and Margarita.  He was pretty scary in that.  He was a man-eating, standing-on-his-hind-legs cat.  The cat wouldn't have made a very good host to the Game Show Show...and Stuff.  Then when the contestants weren't looking, he would chop off their heads and roll it and keep their heads as a souvenir. 

I think this show should be for ages 35 and up because it is at 11 o'clock at night.  Of course I thought I should go see it, but it WAS pretty late at night. If they slept through the whole day, and then got up at 9 at night, then kids that go to school could go see it. People that like games shows, circuses, music, and delicious cakes with creme and zig zags on them would like this show.  I've never been to a game show before, so this is what I think it is like: sitting in awe watching people do crazy things. The Game Show Show is totally awesome.