To See Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol

 

On December 3rd I went to see manual cinema’s production of Christmas Carol at Writer’s Theatre. This play is different than other plays because it is mostly all puppets! And I don't mean like marionettes but I mean kind of like shadow puppets or paper puppets. This play is also different because it has a second plot along with the classic Christmas Carol storyline, which I like because it adds more to the story. I don't think I need to tell you the summary of A Christmas carol because basically EVERYONE knows the story. But in case you don't, grunt guy Ebeneezer scrooge is very mean and lacks Christmas spirit. So he gets haunted by the 3 Christmas ghosts who take him through his past, present, and future from other Christmases to help him change his ways. But the plot of the side play is that uncle joe used to do a Christmas carol puppet show every year. But then he dies during covid, so his not-very Christmasy wife (played by LaKecia Harris) has to perform it on zoom. (This takes place in 2020) Then SHE gets haunted by the ghosts and has to keep serving the puppet show while sometimes pausing to talk about her relationship with Joe. 

The puppetry design (Drew Dir) and execution for this were INSANE. I don’t even understand how they could accomplish something that fast-paced! They had to run back and forth, get timing PERFECTLY, and craziest of all, it was all done by PAPER or something like that! They accomplished a FULL ANIMATION rank here because I can't believe how perfect it was! This play was AMAZING. The people who did the puppetry were Lizi Breit, Julia Miller, and Jeffrey Paschal. Jeffrey Paschal also played the delivery guy at the end. If these puppeteers don't do this as a full-time job, I think they could be aliens from another dimension because that is AWESOME! And also, all of their music and songs were ON STAGE STUFF, instead of being recorded or something on speakers! The music and singing were done by Ben Kauffman, Emily Meyer, and Kyle Vegter. A Christmas carol has a lot of adaptations, but this version of A Christmas Carol was COMPLETELY original, having a whole new take on the Christmas ghost tale. I recommend anyone who never says “BA HUMBUG!” should see this play. I rate this play 10 ghosts out of 10 because it was just phenomenal and funny and amazing! WATCH THIS PLAY NOW AND IF IT IS NOT PLAYING RIGHT AT THIS VERY SECOND THEN BUY TICKETS NOW! I really want you to see this play.

Peace, Gunnar

Photo Credits: Liz Lauren

To See ELF the Musical at Drury Lane

 On SUNDAY the 27th of the 11th month of the year I went to see ELF THE MUSICAL at the Drury Lane theater with my mom, her partner, and my sister. Lynn Kurdziel Formato directed and choreographed this play. Buddy the Elf was played by Ben Dow who is a VERY VERY good at portraying Buddy. He was probably the BEST actor in the show. He was AMAZING!

If you don’t know the plot of the original 2003 movie, Buddy, (played by Ben Dow) crawls into Santa's (played by A.D. Weaver) bag one night and accidentally brings him back to the north pole, where the elves raise him as one of their own. When he is old enough to know better, he finally finds out he is a human and travels to New York to meet his human family (played by Sean Fortunado, Melody A Betts, and Gabriel Solis). Elves make toys at the North Pole, but you never know what kind of mischief or magic could happen in the busy city of NYC. Buddy learns how to make it snow in his dad’s office, makes Macy's a wonderland, falls in love with the Macys worker Jovie, (Lydia Burke), and has some really crappy souvlaki. In ELF THE MUSICAL, Buddy will face fruit spray and non-believers but he will never stop smiling because smiling’s his FAVORITE!

  Drury Lanes' musical adaptation added some pretty funny bits, like Santa watching NFL or Buddy saying he’s like Annie. But, I will say that they left out SO many essential parts from the movie, like the part where he goes in the women's locker room or when he goes around new york doing silly things, and PLUS, they had a big screen, so they had so much potential. They could've made the awesome snowball fight scene! They could've had buddy decorate the Gimbels, or, in this case, Macy's! The screen could have made SO many instant scene changes. Plus they left out the great part at the end where they’re trying to put the engine on while being chased by the guys on horses, bUt I dOnT sEe WhY tHaT wOuLd Be ChAlLeNgInG iN aNy WaY!!1!!1 (by the way that's called sarcasm. 😅) I thought the acting was GREAT. Each actor portrayed the character in the movie PERFECTLY and they had such great acting skills. They made it seem like it was all real and not just a play but also real life (which I guess doesn't make much sense because it IS real life but it's all acting is what I meant.). I thought the lighting was pretty OK, but it could've been better. I did like it a lot in the scenes where the characters were on the right or left sides of the stage and the light was fully everywhere, which let you look at the set more, instead of all focus being on the characters. The lighting was done by Lindsey Lyddan and Anthony Churchill. The costumes were PERFECT. So shoutout to among us Rachel Boylan and Emily Young! The music was decent, not bad at all but not THE GREATEST. I thought the songs could have used a bit of work, but some of the songs were just in general REALLY NICE. So good job to Carey Deadman, Ray Nardelli^, Matthew Skylar, and Chad Beguelin. Like I said before, they had a projector, so there wasn’t AS much of a need for a set on stage, but I kinda feel like it would've been better iF there were more on stage, because there were a lot of moments that I feel could've been better if there was more set ON STAGE. But I also think the projector was nice because it added a cartoony feel to the play, kind of like how there was a cartoony feel in the movie. 

I think this play was a 7 out of 10 elf hats, because, you know, elves? I recommend this play to people who like ELF (the movie) if they really want to see this. Because the tickets are kinda overpriced. 100 dollars a ticket? I think ELF THE MUSICAL had great potential but just wasn’t good enough to make me love it.  So yeah bye, GUNNAR