Panto Pandemonium...
I took Oliver to see Sinbad the Sailor at Walterdale last night. It was a very committed show and there were many fine performances, particularly from the leads. Oliver had a lot of fun until about 10:15 when he just started to feel too tired (I kept him home today because who knows what he would be like at school after last night). The show didn't end until 11:00 p.m.
The funniest part for me (and the best for Oliver) was when Oliver got to go onstage to guess the camel's name. He was by far the "best" for audience particiaption in the first act and apparently the cast LOVED him (we were told this by Wayne Arthurson who went backstage at intermission), so when volunteers were asked for to name the camel Ollie's hand shot up and they literally were already looking right at him to bring him down. He was so excited. They obviously had a plan, the third person to guess would obviously be the "correct" guesser, so Oliver was asked last and he "won" (a nice handful of candy - great...). But then he came back to the seat and told me this: "Mom, I was really worried about guessing, because I usually guess wrong, but that name was really easy." The name he guessed? "Camel".
So the show has many plusses, but it is a mixed bag and there were parts that were well-performed but should have been cut for the sake of the whole piece. It is hard as a director to do that, but you have to make the hard choices. The whole Thriller sequence - cut it --> maybe keep the first verse for the joke, but not the whole thing. Not because it was poorly performed, it just stopped the action and didn't add anything to the plot and it was long. I certainly felt it hit the mark in many places, but if it is for kids it has to be shorter and I don't think the humour of a Panto has enough for just adults.
The funniest part for me (and the best for Oliver) was when Oliver got to go onstage to guess the camel's name. He was by far the "best" for audience particiaption in the first act and apparently the cast LOVED him (we were told this by Wayne Arthurson who went backstage at intermission), so when volunteers were asked for to name the camel Ollie's hand shot up and they literally were already looking right at him to bring him down. He was so excited. They obviously had a plan, the third person to guess would obviously be the "correct" guesser, so Oliver was asked last and he "won" (a nice handful of candy - great...). But then he came back to the seat and told me this: "Mom, I was really worried about guessing, because I usually guess wrong, but that name was really easy." The name he guessed? "Camel".
So the show has many plusses, but it is a mixed bag and there were parts that were well-performed but should have been cut for the sake of the whole piece. It is hard as a director to do that, but you have to make the hard choices. The whole Thriller sequence - cut it --> maybe keep the first verse for the joke, but not the whole thing. Not because it was poorly performed, it just stopped the action and didn't add anything to the plot and it was long. I certainly felt it hit the mark in many places, but if it is for kids it has to be shorter and I don't think the humour of a Panto has enough for just adults.
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