‘Playbox,' Mill Theatre

Press, 28 August 1986, Page 8

‘Playbox,' Mill Theatre

“Playbox,” written and directed by Chris Stachurski for the Riccarton Players, at the Mill Theatre, Wise Street, August 23 to September 6. Running time: 6.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. Reviewed by Gary Fox. With the variety of children’s holiday entertainment on offer, parents are well advised to depend once again on the tradition and experience that lie behind the Riccarton Players and this production from their “Playbox” Theatre for children. The intimacy to be enjoyed at the small Wise Street theatre might be a further inducement. i Chris Stachurski has devised a storyline that is told crisply, . directly, vividly and amusingly through dialogue that is neither too simple not too sophisticated, and has allowed her cast of four enough rein without letting them overdo the effects desired. “There are lots of types of magic,” we are told at the beginning, and unfortunately, Arabella Longbottom, a\ witch with the best of intentions, is just no good at magic at all—indeed, she was expelled from witches’ school for making so many mistakes with her spells. She has inadvertently turned the apprentice of a neighbouring wizard into a 1 flspeed bicycle, and, with thdj|help of her cat

her sister, a friendly fairy, she hastens off to put the matter right. The actors were all on the wavelengths of their youthful audience right from the start. Susan Earle made a delightfully muddly Arabella, clad in the regulation black witch’s uniform, as well as multi-coloured stockings. She spoke clearly, looked — warts and all — not too scary, and demonstrated some eldritch shrieks plus a singing voice that could well cut glass?: Matthew Miller, as the quaintly named Fiddlybits the cat, elicited much sympathy and concern, as he washed himself thoroughly, cried copiously, and dressed himself as a human — being warned by his engrossed audience that such things as whiskers and tails are dead giveaways for felines in disguise. Kerry Gallagher as the bored Christmas tree fairy, Begonia, proved to be a lady with a past (she was an old flame of the Wizard’s) and had a nice line in deadpan patter. The Wizard, as played by Greg Heaton, was all he should have been: young, handsome, measured of speech, a snappy dresser in his emblazoned cloak, and no mean juggler in between jobs. The play runs for just on an hour and seems much shorter, and so it is

surprising that the pace flagged occasionally — journeys on a magic carpet were a little too long, as were the disguising sequence and even the juggling competition between cat and wizard. A couple of sound and lighting cues seemed a trifle uncertain, and surely, when everything else was rendered visually, we could have seen, rather than imagined, the large number of ingredients that went into cauldron for Arabella’s big spell. But any such cavils are beside the point. The children, who were the main reason for the play in the first place, were enthralled throughout. When asked to participate, they did wholeheartedly: chanted spells, held bicycles, shouted encouragement, advice and warnings, and gasped with unfeigned delight at the unexpected noctunal illumination inside the wizard’s castle, when the attractive costumes really came into their own. This is a colourful production with much to commend it. It is presented by a pleasant and committed . group of people, and their efforts were warmly appreciated by the (numerically) small audience at last evening’s performance. It must be hoped that numbers will increase before the season ends next week.