Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called, That's Weird, Abuelita. This show was in Spanish, English, and also mimed. You will enjoy this show if you know Spanish, English, or neither of them. I think people will like the show because it is really funny. I think the Barrel of Monkeys respect children in a way that helps them learn how to write plays and get into a theater world. It is one of my favorite theater companies because they do stories that are funny and they don't just say "Oh, I did such a great job with this." They thank the kids for helping them do such a good performance.
There was one short little play called "The Big Bully." It was about people in court trying to figure out who the big bully was. So, the beginning was an Ant running with an enormous peanut, and then everybody has to find out who made the Ant trip, and they find out who made the Ant trip, and the person who made the Ant fall is...the Ant. Not directly, because he stole the peanut from the human and that causes a series of unfortunate events. I liked it because I thought it was creative that they thought about different things that happened in different seasons and put them all in the same place at the same time. I liked how they had a human, because it is kind of funny to think of a human talking to a balloon or an ant. It is kind of like Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears or Because a Little Bug Went Ka-choo because it was a series of disasters. Sometimes they can be funny disasters, like a giant peanut being lost. Sometimes they can be terrible disasters, like baby owls falling out of nests and dying. I prefer the funny disasters, not the sad disasters, so that's why I like this better than Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears.
I liked "Me and My Cat at Six Flags" because it was fuhlarious. So, the cat and the girl go to Six Flags and go on the roller coaster. Everybody is screaming except for the cat. The cat is not screaming at all; he's going side to back to forward. He has a very serious expression, like, the is the most boring ride ever. They usually do this in That's Weird, Grandma too. Abuelita means grandma in Spanish. It was the exact same scene except that when the people came to look at the cat, some of them were saying Spanish words.
One of my favorite pieces was called "Untitled/Rite in Space." It was about this magician who accidentally sent a girl into space. Then you could hear her voice from backstage going, "Help me." Then another guy said, "Do it to me now," and he kept doing funny things, just being there in a meditating position or a ballet position. You expect him to be gone, but he is still there every time. I liked this because I thought it was really funny and it mostly didn't have words.
I think "The Grandpa Who Makes Piñatas" was really funny because Oscar went up and down with his feet and his arms; basically his whole body was going up and down. I thought it was cool that they used cardboard word bubbles because it was like it was a comic book. The grandpa came in and gave Oscar the scissors and the cat got a haircut. Then the cat took the scissors and gave Oscar a haircut. I thought it was kinda funny for a cat to give a human a haircut.
I thought "The Bad Dancer" was really good because in "The Bad Dancer" three girls went up in the ballet class and then they did some dancing to a very slow song which was very easy. And then two boys and the bad dancer went up, and they changed the music to the Russian dance from the Nutcracker. And then the boys were doing it, and then she decided to go along, but she didn't go along at all. She punched people in the nose and in the face and in the eye while we she was dancing. I kind of like slapstick sometimes. I don't like people dying and then that's funny; I kind of think it is funny when people are not actually getting hurt but it looks like it. That character was really a bad dancer. Not the actual actress. I have never seen her dance, but I suspect that she is not actually a terrible dancer.
"El Oso y el Fantasma" was a little confusing to me because I am not very good at Spanish. I thought the ghost and the bear were friends, but their friendship was kind of ending, so the bear wanted to eat cake with him. But then he got so angry and threw the honey at him. I am right about the honey, but I am not right about the friends. They are actually enemies. Then I read the actual story and they are actually enemies. You should read the script first in whatever your first language is, so then you will understand everything better. Like if you want to know why women in France just wear bottoms at the beach. You might not really understand it at first, but then you do understand it later because they are a different culture. Sometimes it is fun figuring out a mystery in a play or on a vacation. If you want it to be a mystery, you should not read it first. I didn't know that this piece was going to be a mystery, but then I solved it and it was fun.
I think this show should be for ages 2 and up because Barrel of Monkeys is for all ages. It shouldn't be for under 2 because of "I Believe it is Disgusting." In that they talk about how they hate diapers and kids like one-year-olds really love diapers. Then all the one-year-olds that came to see it will all gang up on those actors and have a baby fight, which is a poke, which doesn't hurt very much at all. Then all the actors would get scratched with baby scratches. So I would play it safe. If you did take a one-year-old to this show, then their feelings would be hurt because they say, "I believe we should not have babies."
People who would like this show are people who like monkeys, being sent into space, and Six Flags. People should see this show because it is fuhlarious and it is for people who know Spanish and English. And people who just know English can learn Spanish and vice versa.
Once upon a time, I went to a show and it was called, and I cannot tell you what the name is because the first word is the B-word. So the whole thing is B----, I'll Cut You. I think I know why Monique Madrid used the B-word--because she is supposed to be a sexy, weird, hair-cutting lady named Monica Barcelona. And the "I'll cut you" part is supposed to be not "I'll cut your head off" but "I'll cut your hair." This show is an audience-participation comedy. Some people wrote their name down on a list ,and then two people get to come up on stage and get a hairdo or get their makeup done. I thought it was fun because all the audience felt like they were in the actual show.
Monica Barcelona has a weird hairdo, like they are like big puffy ponytails, only not just big but enormous big puffy ponytails, only not just enormous but quizillion-wizillion-normous. They're just really big. They are bigger than her head. P.S. they are not bigger than the universe. It is funny because she is supposed to be weird and that means she might have a weird taste and then she will give herself a weird taste of a hairdo.
This is not a touching play. If you only like dramas, then you would hate this play with all your heart and never want to see Monique and Erica Elam again because they are fuhlarious. (And if you also go to Monique's house to see her husband, you will also be disappointed because he is hilarious as well.) The whole audience has to say this little chant that goes like this, "Monica Barcelona, you is beautiful. And if Monica Barcelona says you is beautiful, then you is beautiful." And I thought that was a funny way to get people ready to have a haircut.
Erica plays Monica Barcelona's assistant. At the beginning, she says "I have some problems with..." and somebody has to shout out what she has a problem with. And then when somebody does that, she says, "Yes I have a problem with..." in this case, "drinking." She said, "Oh, we have lots of different things, we have water, wine, and beer." It was obvious that she had a drinking problem if they only had water, wine and beer, because obviously two of them were her idea.
One of the people from the audience who was getting a haircut was dancing with Monica Barcelona instead of his "girlfriend." His girlfriend was played by Erica. But instead of just dancing with her he danced sexy and romantic with her which is not very nice to do in front of your girlfriend. And then Monica Barcelona did not think that was very nice, and I cannot blame her even though she is very weird. She just said "Why are you dancing with me instead of your pretty girlfriend that you are planning to marry," or something along the lines of that. It showed you that she gives away secrets and she is not very nice to her customers and it makes it funnier because if someone is kind of mean to someone in a play or in a cartoon it can be funny. Kind of like slapstick. This wasn't slapstick, it was like, instead of hitting them, hurting them in the heart. It wouldn't be funny in real life because you would feel sorry for that person. But since it is just a play, people don't feel sorry because it isn't in real life.
People that would like this show are people that would like audience participation, crazy hairdos, and little chants. I think this show is really fun for lots of different people who have good taste. Ada Barcelona, you is beautiful. And if Ada Barcelona says you is beautiful, then you is beautiful.
Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Romeo Juliet. And it was about Romeo and Juliet, some of the famousest Shakespeare characters. As you can see, because the title is different, it is not just plain old Romeo and Juliet. It is a shorter and funnier version. I think Sean Graney, the director and writer, wanted the actors to get to do stuff that they wanted to do and not just be directed around all the time. He let them choose what the set looked like and what would be easiest to move around in. He put an opera and play together, only he took out the singing, and shortened them both up, and then he added the middle lines by himself, and then he would mix the different lines up, and then, voila, you have a script. I think the actors might change the script every night for different audiences and what they liked and stuff. This show is touching, funny, and makes the audience feel like they are actually in Romeo and Juliet's world.
At the beginning the audience would go into this little door and have tea and make a love token to put on the love wall. I felt like it really was telling you to enjoy yourself and that this would be an awesome play. And the attendants/actors were very nice. It made you know that this is only a play and when they die and have sword fights and kill themselves that is not actually going to happen. But I still felt like this is scary, and I was so involved, but when I got too scared I would remember those nice things that they said to the audience in the tea room.
I thought the scene where Tybalt (Lindsey Gavel) dies is a very cool scene. His name is the prince of cats, but since Tybalt was played by a girl it should be the princess of cats. It is very interesting to see a girl talk in a man's voice and do manly things. It makes you think, this person has good acting skills and she knows how to act like a man. Another of my favorite parts where a woman is playing a man is the part with Paris (Tien Doman) when Paris was jumping up and down and was going to give Juliet's father (Zeke Sulkes) a big hug, but then she's like "No, no. Men shake. Manly shake." It is funny to be a woman and you are pretending to be a boy and since you don't know how men talk to each other in an affectionate way, when she does it she's like, "no...manly shake." Sometimes in Shakespeare's stories women dress up as men to fight, get what they want, or find the perfect match for themselves, and I think that is one of the reasons why they cast Lindsey and Tien as boys. But the boys did not play girls in this play because they already had two women actresses and there are only three women's parts and they took out one of the women's parts.
I liked the romance scene. Some kids might think it was funny or gross. I thought it was both because almost the whole time people were kissing in the background and that is funny but weird. In the front Romeo (Walter Briggs) and Juliet (Lindsey Gavel) are talking about romance and how they are going to get married and stuff like that. I call it the romance scene because it is mostly romance. This is based on the balcony scene. It is the most famous scene from Romeo and Juliet. But in this play, Juliet said most of Romeo's lines, like "soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Romeo is the sun." But usually it is "soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun." By doing this, it shows you that a woman can talk romantically to a man and not just the other way around.
I thought the Nurse (Tien Doman) was sweeter than I usually remember in the usual version. This is because she wasn't just the Nurse; she was Friar Nurse because Sean Graney mixed Friar Lawrence with the Nurse. So she gave the special ointment to Juliet and told Juliet's father that she was "D-E-A-D." When I say she is sweeter than I remember, this is a pun. That's why Juliet called her her "honey nurse."
Mercutio (Zeke Sulkes) seems to like Romeo more than he usually does. I am not sure that he like likes Romeo, but he likes him more than he usually does because he says "I love you," and sometimes that means "I want to marry you" and sometimes it means, "You are a good friend to me." He gets a big death scene where Romeo, to stop the pain, has to kill Mercutio, which is not the usual way of doing it in the Shakespeare play. And he gets killed later. Usually he gets killed in the middle of the play, but this play he gets killed right before Romeo and Juliet die. But also Paris dies and he says "A plague to both your houses," which is usually Mercutio's line, and then Mercutio says, "She's stealing my life and she stole my lines too!" which I thought was fuh-larious. I liked having Mercutio around longer because it is usually a big bummer that he dies right in the middle of the show because you still want more of his hilarity and sarcasm.
I thought the death scene was sad but also funny because Mercutio said some funny lines that I talked about in the last paragraph. Romeo says that the poison is quick, but actually it takes him about 5 minutes to actually die. We get to see him talk to Juliet and be like, "I'm already dying and she is waking up. This is not working out well." And then, instead of Juliet just stabbing herself, she says a line from the balcony scene which is "Parting is such sweet sorrow," and then she stabs herself. I think they did that to make it be more sad and scary. She says "parting is such sweet sorrow" which also can mean "dying is such sweet sorrow." Sweet sorrow means bittersweet. If you want to be with the person that's dead, then it can be happy for you. It is a little silly to do that, so I'm never going to do that, because it is really weird. Shakespeare isn't weird, but killing themselves is weird, but not ha ha weird. It is a sad kind of weird.
People that would like this show are people that like Shakespeare, bittersweet things, and people stealing lines. I think this show should be for ages 7 and up. I liked this show because you can be involved in the show by peeling oranges and having tea. It is funny and sad, both in the same play.
Photos: Ryan Bourque
Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Crow. It is about this guy named Donald Crowhurst (Jeremy Sher) who enters in a competition to see if he can travel around the world in a boat. And if he gets first place he will get a lot of money and a big trophy as well. And this trip wouldn't have been possible without Mr. Best who was not at all the best--his name was totally misleading--who gave him money for the boat that he would sail in. But it was kind of a crappy boat because it didn't have all the safety things it needed--like things to make it not leak and tip over. And that's why it was so crappy, so he couldn't really sail in it without dying or killing himself. So, right before he went missing he went a little crazy. He was writing in his journal, which they found later, and he wrote some really weird things about how it was on the boat. So he would lie a lot right before he died, which meant it might have been about his family or about if he was going really crazy. It is about a guy going crazy on a boat while he was in a contest and had children and a wife, so I suspect they missed him a lot after he died, and I feel sorry for all of them. You should not take any little kids to see this. It is too sad. Adults should see it because I think they would find it very touching, and I like it even though I am a kid--but I'm not very little.
I really liked the scene where Donald was reading his wife's fortune and saying how many children she would have and that she would have a husband that loves her. He was very drunk when he did this. I think he was at a fair or a bar or has had 20 flights of different beers. He just holds a ball of rope and that's her hand or a fortune-telling ball. If you are wondering why I have not mentioned any other actors, don't blame me because there are no others. They chose to just do a one man performance with rope because there are lots of ropes on boats and there was only one person on the boat. It tells you that he is all alone on this boat and the rope is his family and his friends. His baby is also made out of rope, which is a little bit freaky, as you can understand. And he also used rope as a telephone to talk to Mr. Best. He ties ropes together to make different things that will help him on his long journey. He is connecting ropes like his family tree and stringing them together like it is his family tree. He misses his family and wants to go back to them. But he can't.
Donald had a best friend who was a bird on the boat. His name was Albert, and he was a seagull, and Donald would have conversations with him. In those conversations, Albert would ask him things about God and about Albert Einstein. I think this also showed how much Donald was going crazy because he was talking to a bird who couldn't understand what he was saying. The bird was named Albert, named after Albert Einstein, because Donald was very very interested in Albert Einstein because he was interested in getting to the horizon. Einstein is interested in space and time and so is Donald because he is traveling around the world. Time is important to him because he wants to get around the world in the right time. Space is important to him because he doesn't want to get lost, which he does.
I thought the scenes with projections by Liviu Pasare were really awesome. I thought the projections were really awesome and cool because they showed us that Donald was really going crazy. So he would be going crazy with letters; letters were coming like up all around him on the screens that were also sails. I thought the screens being sails was a really good idea because you didn't have to pull down a screen or anything and you would already have things that could be used as screens. There were also these scenes where they put projections of like squiggly lines on the TV which are called statics which means on your TV that your program is broken and that is not good. But at this time it just happened behind people. In the play it also went on his face which was very cool but not very realistic. There are lots of different scenes with his video camera. He is shooting things to send to his wife or Mr. Best and on to the news. Sometimes he is talking to Mr. Best, and sometimes he is telling people on the tv how he is doing--bad but he said good. And that's the lying I was talking about. I think it showed well how he wanted his life to be. I mean that he wanted to win and he wanted to be a rich man and that he was going to be a rich man and was going to be famous and was going to be loved by everybody. But he double wasn't going to be. When he is talking into the video camera, he seems very cheerful and he seems like he's going to be very successful in the immediate future. But he is really not.
I think this show should be for ages 7 and up because it is very sad and I think 7-year-olds can handle sad things. People that would like this show are people that like Albert Einstein, seagulls, and rope. I loved this show because it is a really touching and awesome show.
Photos: Emma Stanton
Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Pride and Prejudice. It was about a young woman who lived in this really crazy family and she met this man named Mr. Darcy (Dennis Grimes) who didn't like her family and was a very bad conversationalist. This play is called Pride and Prejudice because Mr. Darcy is Pride and Prejudice is Elizabeth (Laura McClain), the main character. Mr. Darcy is very proud because he has a lot of money and usually, in books, people with a lot of money are usually very proud. He has very rich and so-called nice people that are related to him. He's proud of all of these amazingly rich-y things that happened to his friends and colleagues and relations. Elizabeth is prejudiced because she looks at Mr. Darcy and judges his book by the cover.
This performance wasn't exactly like the book. Elizabeth wasn't the narrator in the book like she was in the play. But it is just better to have the main character narrate in a play because it is like telling someone about this time that happened, and if the narrator wasn't actually there it's not as realistic. Having her talk to the audience makes it seem more like she's the main character. They like that character more if she's talking to them. If Elizabeth didn't interact with the audience in the play, you would be missing all these funny parts that the narrator says in the book. At the very start of the play Elizabeth comes over and says, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife" from the actual book. But she keeps getting interrupted by her family. It shows you it is a comedy/romance. They left out one of my favorite parts which was, "Time, and her aunt, moved slowly." I just thought that was so funny; it left my mom and me laughing for like two hours. But they put in a part to make up for that which was "Oh no!" when Mary (Cassidy Shea Stirtz) started playing the piano and singing because Mary was a pretty bad singer.
One of my favorite parts was when Mrs. Bennet (Cameron Feagin) jumps out of bed like she was never sick in her life. "I'm just in my clothes! and my shoes!" She was in bed because Lydia (Kirsty Rivett) had run off with Mr. Wickham (James Gasber). They ran away with each other in Bawwwth (Bath) where you can have bawths. That's a true story. You can actually have very good bawths in Bawwwth. I really really like Mrs. Bennet, not because she's nice--she's actually kind of a weird character--but because she just makes weird and funny decisions. She is very excited about this handsome man who is coming to visit. I expected Mrs. Bennet to act weirdly funny and that was what Cameron did. I thought she did an awesome job.
I thought Mr. Bennet (Don Bender) was really funny but in a different way. Mrs. Bennet was funny in a way that just said this character is a character that is lovably enthusiastic. Mr. Bennet is funny because he is very deadpan. Like when he says "Thank you so much, Mary, you've delighted us long enough" when she's doing a terrible job at singing. He thinks everything is something to laugh about. He is basically like my grandpa--very ornery.
I loved the scene where Mr. Darcy was dancing with Elizabeth. They start dancing because Sir William (Wm. Bullion) comes over and is like, "Join each other! Dance!" and Elizabeth is like, "ohhh. kaaay." Then they were just standing there for awhile talking and then the other dancers were confused because they didn't have their third couple. It is funny having two people talk in the middle of a dance when they are supposed to be dancing. I looked at Charlotte's look and I noticed her look the most, it was just so fuh-larious. She looked so confused and awesomely awesome. And Jane (Amanda Drinkall) was also really funny because she was so absorbed in her future husband Mr. Bingley (Micah J. L. Kronlokken) and she was just smiling and not noticing she was about to run into someone. But fortunately, she didn't. This scene told you that Elizabeth and Darcy weren't best friends at all. You think, "They are never going to get together. They hate each other so much, why would they ever get together?"
I was really happy that they used Kitty (Kelsey Jorissen) and Lydia talking about the officers from the book because it is just so funny to have these girls always chattering about the officers and how great they are and which ones are coming to the ball. Them talking about the officers helps you remember that they are koo kooo! I thought the sisters did a good job talking about the officer and how awesome they are.
Laura McClain just seemed exactly how Elizabeth should be. She should be funny and smart and clever. And she has just the right amount of spunk to her. I just thought she looked exactly how Elizabeth should, which was a little coat and a long plain white dress. I think Bill Morey did a thumbs-up job with costume design. He made me want to wear Elizabeth's dress that he made. I thought Mr. Darcy was also just right because he did an awesome job of pretending to be mean in the play. Then when he became nice, you are like, "How did he do that?" And he did it with the power of acting.
I really liked the scene where Lady Catherine de Bourgh was trying to stop Elizabeth from marrying Mr. Darcy. Lady Catherine's costume was a big enormous blue dress with peacock feathers all over. It is so ridiculously awesome. It made her seem very unreasonable with cash, like she buys stuff she really doesn't need. The scene was satisfying because Elizabeth was just saying "I don't care. I'll do what I want." You are feeling like, "Wow, she is a very brave and sophisticated woman."
I think this show should be for ages 6 and up. It is very kid-friendly, but it is pretty long. So just warn the children that they will have to sit through a very long time, but there is an intermission. People that would like this show are people that like Jane Austen, officers, and women in peacock-feather dresses trying to get in the way of lovers. People should see it because it is awesome, fun, and hilarious.
Photos: Suzanne Plunkett
