The vibe of the show was very very fun and exciting. I felt like they stayed very true to the book and didn't add in a lot of things that weren't needed. I really liked the music (composed by Andrew Pluess, played by Greg Hirte, Foster, L.J. Slavin, and Matthew C. Yee). It was very pirate-y and very catchy and I am still singing the songs. The set (designed by Todd Rosenthal) looked like a huge boat and it could rock back and forth, which was very cool. And it worked just as well for all the different places because they would decorate the set with vines when it was the jungle and bring down a sign and set up some tables when it was the pub. And I thought it was cool how they made it work for all the different places and I loved the set. The costumes (by Ana Kuzmanic) were so authentic and real-life looking. They really drew me into the story. Class was very important because some people had holes in their stockings, like Black Dog, and some people were wearing sails, like Ben Gunn (Pickering), and some people had frilly pink outfits, like the Squire. But even the Squire didn't maintain his fancy clothes the entire time because they were looking for treasure in the jungle. You probably shouldn't wear that fancy outfit out there anyway, but it showed you that he thought it wasn't going to be that bad.
Redruth was maybe my favorite character because he had a very refined air about him, but then he was going on a pirate journey. He always has his nose in the air and he has one of the most refined British accents. He is doing such a ridiculous thing (going to sea) because his master told him to. That is what a butler is supposed to do: take care of his master no matter what. And that also shows that he is very courageous. I liked that he still maintains his dignity throughout the trip. Captain Smollett was a really fun character. He was very serious about everything he did, even when it was completely ridiculous. And a lot of his scenes were hilarious. I also liked how at the beginning he had the right idea about the crew (Travis Delgado, Foster, Anthony Irons, Ariel Shafir, and Yee) the entire time. And the Squire and the Doctor were like, "Oh how can you think that?" The Squire and the Doctor were also hilarious. Long John Silver was a very serious and scary character. He was scary because even though he only had one leg, he was very threatening and it seemed like if he wanted you dead you could be dead in a few minutes. He seemed to only care about himself, which is basically true. But he did have some redeeming by the end because he didn't want to hurt Jim. Another one of my favorite characters was Ben Gunn who was stranded on an island by his pirate buddies and when Jim's ship comes, he finally gets to see humanity again. And one of my favorite parts of the show is when he is reunited with his one true love: cheese. He is just so happy to see cheese again and it is just so funny and I love it so much. I would definitely go see this show again just for that moment. But luckily there were other great moments as well.
One of my favorite funny moments was when they were running away from the pirates but it was all in slow motion and so hilarious. That is one of the reasons I love the Captain so much because this scene showcases how dramatic and still-doing-his-job he is and it made me laugh so hard. I loved it. My favorite touching moment was when Jim was about to set out on his journey and his mom was so sad because she wasn't going to see him for a while and she didn't want him to be in danger. It was touching because his mom seemed kind of mad at him that he was going but you could tell that she was just sad. Another thing I really liked was when the pirates would attack the other sailors they would climb down from the top of the stage like from the crow's nest, but really the catwalk above the stage. I also really liked it when there were supposedly canon balls coming onto the stage but they were really heavy black bean bags. And that was super funny and creative.
People who would like this show are people who like treasure maps, slo-mo running, and cheese. I think people should definitely go see this show. I love all the shows I've seen at Lookingglass and this was no exception. I loved it!
Photos: Liz Lauren
The vibe was very cool and kind of creepy, like a Victorian girl's room should be. When you enter the theater, everything is covered in dolls and vines (set by Kailee Tomasic and props by Rachelle "Rocky" Kolecke). And there is one big bed and they seem like they live in a quaint little house without a mom or a dad. You expect it to be like a fairy tale, which it sort of is. It has a lot of the same ideas as a fairy tale. The set is also very creepy like a lot of fairy tales. I thought the goblin face masks (costumes by Beth Laske-Miller) were really cool and creepy. They were grey and when Laura started turning grey it was the exact same grey, so I thought she might be turning into a goblin, which was pretty cool. The live music adds to the entire vibe which was cool and creepy. They had a violin (Simeon Tsanev), cello (Alexander Ellsworth), piano (Bouthiette) and percussion (Cali Kasten). They even had sound effects like on a radio show, like they had wind noises which were pretty cool.
At the beginning of the show Laura and Lizzie were playing this memory game and they were reciting the list of all the different kind of fruits that were at the goblin market, which was super catchy and I still kind of remember some of the words. And it is all part of the poem, which is really cool. The descriptions of the fruit at this point were childish and fun. And each of them had a motion that went with it that were childish and fun too. Like they would give each other the raspberry whenever they said raspberries, which I thought was very adorable. The game brought the sisters closer together. Then when Laura actually gets to the goblin market it is not fun like she thought it would be like it was playing with her sister. It is fun because she gets to eat those delicious fruits, but it is not the same kind of fun that she has with her sister. This fun is more adult and it is more fun like in a sexy way. You could bring little kids to this play and say, "They are just eating fruit." But they are not actually just eating fruit, but like a 6-year-old's mind won't get that completely. I do think Christina Rossetti did mean it in a sexy way, because it wasn't aimed at children (and she clearly stated that), but she didn't want to talk about sex directly because that would have been shocking in the Victorian period.
After Laura visits the goblin market, she turns into this very lethargic person, and she is not her usual energetic self. But her sister is not mad at her. She just tends to her and tried to help her. Laura seems kind of in shock and I like how they make it open so you can decide what happened to her at the goblin market. It could be that she sees something she knows she shouldn't have, or that she is just so addicted to the fruit that she can't get enough of it, or it could just be that that is what happens when you eat the fruit--you become very lethargic. And at the very end there is another theory that I have. At the end, Lizzie tries to give Laura a very proper Victorian dress, but Laura doesn't take it. I think it is that she feels like she missed out on her childhood after the goblin market because they took her innocence and she wants to stay innocent forever to show the goblins that she can. I feel like this show was very feminist because there was a sister who helped her sister and didn't judge and tried to help her feel better again. She doesn't make her do anything she doesn't want to do, like put on the dress.
People who would like this show are people who like goblin fairy tales, feminism, and fruit. I think people should definitely definitely go see this show. It had so many good elements to it, like the singing and the acting and the story. I loved their production of Coraline last year and I hope to see more of their productions in the future.
Photos: Cole Simon
Nina had a lot of problems because her father didn't want her to be free and happy and she is in a love triangle with Konstantin and Trigorin and also with Trigorin and Arkadina. She was in love with Konstantin first, but she has fallen in love with Trigorin instead because he probably seems more exciting and he is famous and she thinks that he would never hurt her. She thinks Konstantin might hurt her because he has killed a seagull to show how mad he is at her. Which I can understand is pretty scary, but I don't think he would have hurt her the way that Trigorin did. Trigorin doesn't just take Nina from Konstatin, he also takes Konstantin's mom and his ideas for using the seagull as a symbol for a broken person. But you don't hate him completely because you think that he just might be a not very healthy person. He feels like all he needs is power over somebody and Nina is better for that than Arkadina because she is younger and doesn't have a whole huge acting career. And Nina looks up to him because he is such a famous writer. He has doubts about his writing it seems, and having power over someone makes him feel better about himself.
Everyone in the show makes pretty bad decisions a lot of the time and jumps to conclusions, and that is why at the end, no one is really happy. Sorin (David Elliot) is not happy at the end because he is sick but he seems happier at the beginning. He regrets not having a family or becoming a writer. At the beginning he regrets that too but he is healthier so he is slightly more happy. Masha is not happy because the person that she loves doesn't love her in return and the person she doesn't like, Medvedenko, likes her. She has beginning-of-life regrets. You know that she is unhappy because she says that she is unhappy. She says that a lot, that she is unhappy. She is very deadpan, though, and not crying and pathetic, so that makes you feel more sorry for her because she is not annoying. The doctor (Andrew J. Pond) seemed pretty happy all the time, not super depressed like everyone else in the show. I think that was because he had had a pretty good life. All the women, including Masha's mom (Denise Tamburino) were drawn to him. Masha's mom is not super happy, but Masha's dad, Shamrayev (David Cady, Jr.), though he doesn't seem to like his job, is pretty happy. Both Masha's dad and the doctor have just basically done what they wanted in life. In the doctor's case, he makes Masha's mom not very happy. Sometimes if you want full happiness in your life you will have to hurt some people, which I don't really want to do. And I don't think Chekhov thinks you should either because a lot of characters (like Trigorin and Nina) who do things for their own happiness, it doesn't really work out very well for anyone.
A lot of the show is pretty sad, but there are also some really funny moments. Like when Shamrayev keeps saying "Bravo, Silva" because he is so full of himself and loves his jokes so much that he keeps saying them until they aren't funny any more. And that was just really ridiculous and funny. Arkadina was also very terrible at croquet which was also very funny. She kept hitting the ball so far away from the place she wanted it, which was hilarious. It was also kind of funny how different Masha and Medvedenko were from each other and how much he loved her even though they were so different. At one point, Masha gets up and starts stamping her foot a bunch. And you think she is super mad or something. But then Masha says "my foot is asleep" in a super i-don't-even-care voice, and it was super funny.
People who would like this show are people who like Chekhov, love triangles, and bad croquet. I thought this was a really great show and I loved it. I felt bad that there weren't many people in the house the night I saw this show. It is really good, so I feel like people should go see it and that this theater deserves more audience.
Photos: Julie Mack
Everyone when they walk into the apartment has a different opinion. And at the very beginning something very funny happens. The couple notices there is a hole in the window and when the mother walks in, they want to keep her from noticing the window. Corie and Mr. Velasco both thought it had a lot of potential. But Paul and Ethel think it is very ugly. Even the telephone repairman Harry Pepper (Randolph Johnson) had an opinion about the apartment. He was nice about it, but I don't think he liked it much. But he did seem to like Corie, just not the apartment. But by the end I think the apartment doesn't look very bad at all because Corie and Mr. Velasco put in some very nice furniture and things the mother buys them. Mr. Velasco seems like a best friend for Corie. The people who like the house have very carefree personalities. And the people who don't like the house are very sharp and uptight and determined to do what they think is right. Nobody has to change completely; they just have to change their beliefs slightly so they can get along with the people they are spending a lot of their time with.
Corie and Paul had realistic arguments that were also funny When you think back on the arguments you have you sometimes think, "Oh that is how ridiculous we sounded." I loved how Corie and Paul's voices went into this quiet screaming voice, which is totally what I do. Everything they did was something humans do when they are exasperated. They didn't go too over the top, so it was believable that they were actually arguing and it made it much more like a real argument. I was slightly scared they were going to break up. But they get to know each other better throughout the show so they love each other more. There was a lot of door slamming and mad faces which were pretty funny. I felt sorry for their downstairs neighbors! And there is also a part where she sets up dinner for him, but at a separate table. And I thought that was very funny. But it is also touching because you can see they still love each other even though they are really mad.
In the second act, Ethel, Corie, Paul and Mr. Velasco all went out drinking at a restaurant and came back drunk as five sailors. Paul was only half-drunk, Ethel was a full drunk. And Corie and Mr. Velasco were 1 3/4 sailors drunk. I think this was a very very funny scene. It was so funny to see the mother drunk and everyone else acting like crazies, except for Paul who was acting like a complete normal person. I also loved the pre-drunkeness knichi which is supposed to be terrible. Or was it good? No one will ever know. I think I would like it, because I love eel. It shows the personality of each character. Ethel shows her personality of not liking new things with a disgusted face. But over time, she acquires new tastes and that opens up a whole new world for her and opens her to so many new things.
People who would like this show are people who like adorable couples, funny arguments, and knichi. I think people should definitely definitely go see this show. It was fantastically funny, and I loved it!
Photos: Emily Schwartz
The doctors, Dr. Charlotte (Deanna Reed-Foster) and Dr. Wally (Don Tieri), were so funny but they also had to bring a lot of bad news, which was very sad. I feel like this is the perfect example of the funny and the sad being put together. Dr. Charlotte is so funny. One of my favorite moments is when Lee is talking to her because she is Hank's therapist. And Dr. Charlotte says to Lee, "You can't smoke in here" and is very skeptical of her the entire time. Lee never comes to visit Hank, so she is a pretty bad parent. Dr. Charlotte is really really exasperated with her. Then once Lee leaves, Dr. Charlotte gets out a pack of cigarettes and starts smoking, which I thought was hilarious. Dr. Wally's first scene was maybe his weirdest. He seemed like an insane and incompetent person and I wanted Bessie to run because I thought at any moment he might put on a ski mask and start stabbing her with syringes. He was creepy but he had a lot of funny one-liners. Like "That's what you get for hiring your brother!"
The Disney World scene is the scene where you realize how much Lee has changed in her parenting. At the beginning of the show she is mean to her sons all the time, but by the end she has seen a different side to parenting and actually thinks about what is best for her children. The way the family acted in this scene showed you the reality of Disney World; how everybody isn't happy all the time. Sometimes people throw their Coca-cola because they are unhappy. Aunt Ruth seems to be having a pretty fun time, but she is kind of oblivious to everything happening in the family. I also really liked the Gopher (Drew Schad). He was so funny and weird and danced around in the most awkward way possible.
There were these sleeping bag scenes with Hank and Charlie before and after the Disney World scene. The first one was so flippin' funny. At the beginning, Charlie would scootch over by Hank and then Hank would push him away very ferociously. I felt like it was so funny and slightly sad, the way they interacted. You see Hank being the really angry type with his brother who is so different from him. And Charlie will never give up on having a brotherly relationship with his brother. You wanted them to get along.
Bessie was so fun to watch. She just had so much character and charisma and I really wanted to know her. When she found out that she had cancer, she reminded me a lot of my grandma. She was so courageous and not complain-y. The way that she interacted with Hank was so sweet. It seemed like she really did understand him. Bessie does lose her temper sometimes because she has so much responsibility, but you still love her because you know how hard her job is.
I also really loved Aunt Ruth because she was so carefree and funny. I felt like her voice was so cute. And she was always such a funny person with an old-fashioned view of the world, which I loved. She's obsessed with this soap opera and she dresses up to go to a wedding that she is seeing through a t.v. screen of people she has never really met. And Charlie did her makeup, which was so adorable.
People who would like this show are people who like courageous women, soap opera weddings, and awkward dancing gophers. I think people should definitely definitely go see this show. It is amazing, funny, sad--everything you want in a show. I loved it so much!
Photos: Michael Brosilow
I loved the Heebie Jeebies song. They sang it while they were in a blacksmith shop and there was a ghost chasing them. I loved the style of the music, which was jazz. And the entire musical was jazz, which was really cool and appropriate for a musical about Louis Armstrong. I loved the dance that went with it. It was kind of like shaking your hands like they do in Beyoncé videos. The song was about trying to get all the scary things away. They each had one thing they were scared of, so each person could protect the other people from the things that scared them. They were trying to say, "You can be scared of something but if you have your friends with you the heebie jeebies won't get you because you can help each other get over the heebie jeebies."
I really like jazz, so I found the scat parts really cool. Annie was pretty good at scat and I really liked that. Jack was not good at scat at first, but I think he got better over time. Jack was a little overly dorky in this production. In the books he isn't a dork and he isn't scared of everything. He is cautious and smart but that doesn't mean he is a dork. Dipper did such a great job at scat and he was such a great singer. He was really fun to listen to. He didn't sound like Louis Armstrong in the songs I've heard, but when he was a kid maybe he did sound like that before his voice got so low. I think it was a good idea not to make himself sound like Louis Armstrong as a grown-up when he sang since he was supposed to be a kid.
Dipper had a lot of different jobs: carrying bananas, lugging coal, and washing dishes. And Annie and Jack, to get more information, would help with each one of those jobs. I thought that all the songs that went with the work were so fun and great. The dancing went really well with the songs and it got the kids in the audience dancing along with it, which was adorable. Dipper thinks, "How can you think this work is fun?" and Jack and Annie are like "Because we are doing it with you." Then he calls them potato heads. I thought that was super funny and I love how they took the potato head line out of the book. Dipper can't help his friends for no money because he does not have very much money and he has to help feed his family. Jack and Annie can do it because they both have money and live in the future. In the time they are visiting, people of different races couldn't ride together on transportation. When Dipper tells them that, it is very sad because that was a terrible terrible time. There is still racism now, but at least there are no laws saying that you can't ride next to a person of a different race on the train. I thought it was very sophisticated to have that part in the play because you don't want to just lie to children about history.
People who would like this show are people who like jazz, fun dancing, and potato heads. I think that people should definitely go see this show. It is fun for the whole family and I really enjoyed it.
Photos: Isabella Coelho
I felt like the science in the show was so cool. I knew a little about what it was already because of Radiolab, which is a really awesome science podcast. It is also kind of like a Dr. Who type of thing, where there is traveling to different universes. Thinking how there might be another me somewhere who makes different choices is really cool to think about and very interesting. And it worked really well in this play to see a bunch of different versions of one person put into a play. It makes you wonder if this theory is true. When you are watching a play you are watching people make choices and in this play you are watching people making multiple choices in different universes. And that makes it even more interesting. I did feel like the ending was a little disappointing. I did understand that it was Hope in another universe, but I didn't feel like I had enough information about the new place to really understand what the ending meant fully. So I guess that having a lot of universes in one play is really awesome and interesting, but it can get confusing, especially if you are in a new place just for a few seconds at the end of the play.
All the men seemed to be in love with Hope. But the thing was that Jonas seemed to make bad choices sometimes and sometimes he seemed very sweet. When he tried to poke holes in places where he wasn't supposed to poke holes, that was not a sweet version of him. But then when he showed his girlfriend how much he loved her, that was the sweet version.Jonas and Hope were strong and smart and adorable together. They were not the stereotypical romantic couple that you usually see on stage because they weren't lovey dovey just wanting to get married. They were strong and smart and adorable together. Hope didn't want to get married; she just wanted to be boyfriend and girlfriend forever. And he wanted to get married and have kids. Her priorities are to win the Nobel Prize, which has been her dream for a very long time, and she wants to be able to fulfill that and learn to travel between universes. That is not the kind of story that you see on stage all the time and I really like a change in the theater. And Christopher is the other man who loves her, but they can't be together for many different reasons, which I won't spoil. I found that relationship interesting too because they had only just met but he felt liked she was the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen. And she loved him too, but in more of a nurturing way.
The cat was really sassy and funny and made me laugh a lot. I loved how she described where her name came from. Schrodinger sounded so proud when she talked about where her name came from, and I just loved that. I think she might have been my favorite character. And there were some scenes where Hope would go into the parallel universe, into the box where Schrodinger could talk, and they would have scenes where they could talk together. I found Schrodinger so sweet because she wanted it all to turn out well for Hope. I also loved how the cat would drink martinis throughout the show. It was like one of those hilarious cat memes of a cat doing things a cat would never do. And I love funny cat memes, so that is a very big compliment. She was also the narrator, but it seemed like she didn't just tell the stories of the characters. She kind of wanted to control them. She controlled them some, but she couldn't control them completely. Because the narrator didn't have control of the story, it felt like something could go terribly wrong at any moment and that was very exciting.
People who would like this show are people who like alternate universes, strong and smart couples, and martini-drinking cats. I think people should definitely go see this show. It was fun and really really interesting and I loved it.
Photos: kClare McKellaston
