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How Pinocchio's nose grew (and other Arden flights of imagination)
"Pinocchio' at the Arden
Dan Rottenberg
Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi's charming 1883 fable in which a lonely carpenter carves himself a wooden boy-companion, only to discover that the kid's synapses haven't completely grown together, poses several logistical challenges for a stage production:
How to make Pinocchio's nose grow longer when he tells a lie? How to transform Pinocchio and his delinquent friends into donkeys after they spend too much time at Playland? How to stage Pinocchio's escape from the belly of a whale?
Not to worry. This is the Arden Children's Theatre, where literalness always takes a back seat to the imagination, and where talented actors enlist their child audiences as co-conspirators in persuading each other that a set resembling a construction site is actually a dark forest, an amusement park, a stormy sea or, yes, a whale's belly.
After 15 years, the Arden has mastered the art of producing children's theater with thoughtful direction, first-rate Equity actors, highly competent crews and, above all, scripts that treat even small kids not as children but as adults-in-waiting.
My twin grandchildren have attended Arden children's shows faithfully between the ages of five and nine— the prime age range for these productions— and by now many of the actors are familiar faces to them. Eddie and Ella recall David Raphaely (Pinocchio) as the hapless boy victimized in 2010 by an incorrigible rodent in If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. They saw Anthony Lawton (Gepetto) and Brian Anthony Wilson (the Fox, among other roles) in Charlotte's Web last year. Within a few years, I suspect, Eddie and Ella will segue effortlessly into watching Raphaely in Proof at the Walnut or Lawton doing The Great Divorce at the Lantern.
The Arden's updated Pinocchio script, by Greg Banks, effectively conveys the downside of a life devoted to instant gratification and devoid of loving adult supervision. Here he's vulnerable not only to thieves and swindlers but also to bullies, and he's completely on his own. In the Collodi original, at least, Pinocchio had a pint-sized conscience in the person of Jiminy Cricket. But here the Cricket (Doug Hara) is reduced to telling funny riddles.
But that's a minor quibble. So are the inevitable screaming babies brought to the show by parents who ignore the Arden's "five years and older" advisory. Some parents apparently don't understand that this particular company, at least, is more than just a two-hour baby-sitting service.
How to make Pinocchio's nose grow longer when he tells a lie? How to transform Pinocchio and his delinquent friends into donkeys after they spend too much time at Playland? How to stage Pinocchio's escape from the belly of a whale?
Not to worry. This is the Arden Children's Theatre, where literalness always takes a back seat to the imagination, and where talented actors enlist their child audiences as co-conspirators in persuading each other that a set resembling a construction site is actually a dark forest, an amusement park, a stormy sea or, yes, a whale's belly.
After 15 years, the Arden has mastered the art of producing children's theater with thoughtful direction, first-rate Equity actors, highly competent crews and, above all, scripts that treat even small kids not as children but as adults-in-waiting.
My twin grandchildren have attended Arden children's shows faithfully between the ages of five and nine— the prime age range for these productions— and by now many of the actors are familiar faces to them. Eddie and Ella recall David Raphaely (Pinocchio) as the hapless boy victimized in 2010 by an incorrigible rodent in If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. They saw Anthony Lawton (Gepetto) and Brian Anthony Wilson (the Fox, among other roles) in Charlotte's Web last year. Within a few years, I suspect, Eddie and Ella will segue effortlessly into watching Raphaely in Proof at the Walnut or Lawton doing The Great Divorce at the Lantern.
The Arden's updated Pinocchio script, by Greg Banks, effectively conveys the downside of a life devoted to instant gratification and devoid of loving adult supervision. Here he's vulnerable not only to thieves and swindlers but also to bullies, and he's completely on his own. In the Collodi original, at least, Pinocchio had a pint-sized conscience in the person of Jiminy Cricket. But here the Cricket (Doug Hara) is reduced to telling funny riddles.
But that's a minor quibble. So are the inevitable screaming babies brought to the show by parents who ignore the Arden's "five years and older" advisory. Some parents apparently don't understand that this particular company, at least, is more than just a two-hour baby-sitting service.
What, When, Where
Pinocchio. By Greg Banks, from the story by Carlo Collodi; Matthew Decker directed. Through June 23, 2013 at Arden Theatre Co.’s Arcadia stage (upstairs), 40 N. Second St. (215) 922-8900 or www.ardentheatre.org.
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