Playbox success with children’s playlets

Press, 22 January 1979, Page 6

Playbox success with children’s playlets

By Howard McNaughton

“Playbox Theatre,” conceived, produced, and performed by the Riccarton Players; Wharenui School Hall, Matipo Street, January 20 to 27. Running time: 6.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. (Saturday at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.).

The last week in January Items by far the most difficult time of year to entertain small children, as Iny afternoon visit to a I i n e m a will amply femonstrate. Yet, while their tass-mates wrestled with the mysteries of how Juperma’n crosses Cook {trait (and probably lost merest before the main film jegan), a small group of sve-to-eight-year-olds sat enthralled at the simplest find cheapest) kind of live faeatre imaginable.

The Riccarton playbox

! method involves eight dedicated adult actors who I use just the minimum of costumes and props to stage a number of well-known | children’s stories. This time, there are five playlets, the longest running for only 20 minutes, so that the show caters well for limited attention spans.

The longest piece comes first- “The Princess and the ; Enchanter” is a complex ' story-line but holds the attention well. Then comes a delightful sketch from Uncle Remus, with the best acting in the programme: “Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox” has Angela Gillie and Cheri Williams in the title parts, with Rebecca Hart narrating and Paul Harrington contributing a very popular and amiable Brer Bear. In “Snow White and Rose Red” Paul Sutherland presents a bear of a very different temperament, and then the whole cast joins in on an

| animal song (“One More ! River”) to which the Gingerbread Man might well pay closer attention. In “The House that Jack Built,” Glenda Cooke, Max Sullivan, and Doug Clarke bring the cast to full strength for a battle of tongue-twisters, and the show ends with “The Gingerbread Man,” a highly effective chase sequence on the tiniest of stages.

“Playbox” , does not pretend to be great theatre, and its technical limitations are very obvious to adults. Yet, within its own terms its success with young schoolchildre n is so complete that it would be very interesting to see the Riccarton Players adapting the method for other agegroups. For the moment, though, there is an obvious need for a one-hour show like this —in the same street as the Riccarton Mall I car-park.