I was very excited to attend the Treehouse Troupe show on January 14th. The quality of the rest of the Treehouse Museum has been fantastic, which gave me very high expectations for the performing portion of the organization. Sadly, however, I was extremely disappointed with the quality of the experience that my daughter and I attended on that evening. My chief complaints, all of which can be relatively easily rectified, are listed below. Not all aspects of the production were poor, however, the things that were not well-done detracted significantly from the quality of the rest of the performance.
The idea of bringing lesser-known stories and fairy-tales to your audience is very admirable. Expanding a child's exposure to literature is very beneficial for the child and for those with whom that individual associates. The use of the technology in the production (video projections) was a great way to integrate different types of media into the performance. The costuming was very well done and added a sense of reality to the fantastical world of the play. The actor that played the king (Wes Whitby) was convincing, easily heard, and clear in his presence on stage. If the other characters/actors on stage could commit to what they are doing like he did, the quality of the performances would increase dramatically. A director that understands the basic principles of blocking, stage composition, and character motivation would also help the actors to bring their best performances forward.
The first thing that I took issue with (and the thing that took away from the performance the most) was that the scene changes were WAY too long. There is no reason for a scene change to take more than 30 seconds AT THE MOST in a normal theatrical environment. For a children's show there is no room for that kind of change to happen. Stops in the flow of the storytelling process kill pacing and pull the audience out of the world of the play. A child is very forgiving, however, in the theatrical environment, the potential to lose a child's focus and attention is compounded dramatically; and once a child's attention is lost it takes a lot to get that focus back. My child was not exception - after the first scene change she started to fidget and become distracted and by the time the second change happened she was out of her seat, more interested in the floor and the seat in front of her than in what was happening on stage. The scene changes that I saw at "The White Cat" averaged between one-and-a-half and two minutes! If a scene change needs to happen, there needs to be a way built into the flow of the show itself to keep things moving without stopping the show with a conventional scene change.
Approximately 40% of the performance seemed adlibbed and un-memorized. This is just unacceptable in a children's theatre environment. Children are extremely perceptive - the minute that something is not rehearsed and planned the way it should be, the child will know. Not only that, but it is unprofessional and demeaning to the child to give them anything less than what someone would expect form an "adult" performance. Acting begins when memorization ends. There is a time and a place for adlibbing and improvisation, and a children's show is not one of them. The script of the show must be well-written, tight, and memorized completely. The story and the child's understanding of that story should be paramount in the process. Once care is taken with these items and director, actors and all others involved take care to tell the story to the best of their ability THEN a successful production can happen. The director must get honest, organic, listening responses from the actors. The actors must be totally present on stage - in the moment of the scene taking place. Give the kids credit for what they are seeing and how they are interpreting what they see. Over-simplifying and hamming a performance for children is insulting and detrimental to a child's perception of what they are going to see at the theatre. Care must be taken to ensure that each participant desires to return to that space - to feel safe, encouraged, enlightened, and accepted.
There was not enough spectacle to hold a child's attention. Exposition, while an important part of the storytelling process, must be significantly truncated in order to hold a child's attention. Also, in the process of telling the story a general rule of "show me, don't tell me" should be implemented. If it is not, a phenomenon I like to call "talking heads" occurs in which nothing happens on stage - literally. The characters end up just existing on stage with little/no movement, just speaking lines for the sake of the plot. These "talking heads" become boring entities that no one cares about; and if you do not care about anyone on stage then you might as well not be doing the performance. My daughter was lost in the exposition of the story by the end of the boat wreck at the beginning of the story. By the time the audience was introduced to the White Cat the children in the audience were disconnected from the story and the events of the play. As I looked around the seats more than half of the children were looking other places than the stage at that point. Even adult audiences cannot abide a wordy, non-action oriented storytelling on stage. If they wanted that, they would read a book.
The total length of the production was too long for the target audience. Either a change needed to be made to the performances for different age groups with different attention spans or significantly shorten the length of the show to fit the target audience. Fixing the aforementioned scene change issues would significantly help a portion of this issue. However, an eight-year-old has a dramatically different attention span than a 3 year-old. For the sake of the children, whose parents have brought them to the event, do not bore them!
Who was the target audience? Parents? Kids? If not parents, then do not cater to them. Yes, they have to be there for the kids, but they do not need to have anything specifically designated for them - there is a reason it is called CHILDREN'S theatre. The production that I saw did not seem child-centered. The jokes, events, bits, scenery, and all other portions of the performance should be for the child! Letting a child's imagination take hold and giving them the opportunity to use their imagination in the viewing process will help them to desire to return and experience the theatre again. If they feel invested in the imagination and creation process (at least this is the case for my daughter) then the likelihood that they will want to return will increase dramatically.
There is a lot of potential for greatness in a program with such a sound, well-planned, and well executed children's museum backing it. I believe that Treehouse Museum could provide a much needed niche for the gaping hole that is children's theatre in the Ogden area. Placing solid talent and leadership in the Troupe along with people that have the right skills set to help it along will make a world of difference for the organization. It is unfortunate that this kind of work and quality is not in place already for such a solid organization otherwise.
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