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April 13, 2006
Stuart Little; Cambridge Arts Theatre
Yesterday I took Littleone to see Stuart Little at the Cambridge Arts Theatre. In the past year we have been to may productions in Cambridge including well known stories like Beauty and the Beast and The Gruffalo as well as smaller one man shows such as the excellent Fishes Wishes. I’m afraid to say that Stuart Little was the least successful of all. I think the first problem that struck me was that it seemed to have escaped the actors that the sound was amplified satisfactorily and there was no need to force their voices to reach the back of the hall, couple this with the numerous episodes that warranted characters running about the stage screaming and I fully understand the little boy next to us who hid under his seat with his hands over his ears for much of the performance.
Secondly Stuart Little is set in New York, yet the British cast spoke in a Southern whining drawl for most of the performance, which I found as irritating as Americans who insist that all British women speak in that slightly dappy posh upbeat tone of Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones. It also deadened the gag somewhat when the bird flew South and could not get any sense out the locals, who were no different from anybody else except they wore big hats, chewed on straw and sounded like they were on drugs a touch more.
Ok so maybe the kids would not be as picky as me, but I’ve been to shows where the average age of the audience was much younger and the auditorium has been still and silent throughout. Yesterday many children were fidgeting and distracted and I think that this was the greatest indicator that something was amiss. From their point of view, it was too long, you have to work really hard to hold a child’s interest for nearly two hours and this show seemed to consist of three or four barely connected incidents with little audience participation which failed to form a single continuing narrative thread. It’s an insult to our youngsters to assume that you can just plonk their favourite character in front of them for a while and be done with it.
Having said that I do have some positive points to make. Stuart’s puppeteer was visible for the whole performance, which was a great attempt to draw attention to the show’s artifice, in an age where children’s entertainment is characterised by special effects and computer graphics. Also Snowball the cat was brilliantly played by the only black member of the cast, who got a laugh every now and then. Tellingly he also doubled as the bus driver and the road sweeper but I guess the point is that it isn't set in the 21st century, which I admit hadn’t occurred to me watching the film.
All in all a fair performance that could have done with a little more work.
Posted by purple elephant at April 13, 2006 10:03 AM