Score one for Driftwood. With this production, they are again making room for alternative theater, meaning a production that doesn’t meet the requirements for main stage but has nowhere else to go.
In this case, the alternative theater production is A.A. Milne’s “The Ugly Duckling;” which, by the way, bears no relation to Hans Christian Andersen’s fable by the same title. However, it is a one of a kind one-act with something for everybody. Toddlers to seniors, no one’s exempt, everyone laughs.
This apparent fairy tale for children by the same mind that authored “Winnie-the-Pooh,” launched in 1946 and still gets performed but has yet to get the attention it deserves. Depth, humor, comedy, irony, action, suspense, conflict, you name it; Milne’s got it, Director, Jay Irwin, gets it and this cast gives it.
Here it is in a nutshell.
The dizzy-headed King (Tom Fraser) is poised at last to finally marry off his charming but ugly daughter, princess Camilla (Emily Cappel). How, pray tell.
The sharp-tongued Queen (Kat Schroeder), the quick-witted court Chancellor (David Nance) and every other of the kingdom’s denizens knows. Every guy who sets eyes on the clock-stopper heaves.
Not this time, respondeth his majesty, the King. And why not, shrieketh her ladyship, the Queen.
Because, the proclamation is decreed, until the wedding, when it is too late, until then, the eye sore, Camilla, is to be replaced by the stunning babe with the personality of a wash cloth; namely, Dulcibella (Meredith Armstrong.)
Horror of horrors; doomed to be duped, are the unsuspecting innocents, the honorable and handsome prince, Simon (Travis Myers), and his manservant, Carlo (Loren S. DeLaOsa).
Imaginative costuming by designer, Rachel Bowen, Elizabethan sets and props by designer, William H. Bowen, and intelligently applied sound and lighting by designers, Dutch Heetbrink and Damien Amrhein, dress things up.
Meredith Armstrong’s squeaky voice grates to hilarious effect.
Talk about hen-pecking wives; think Kat Schroeder’s queen. Talk about roosters with no crow, think Tom Fraser’s King. Is theirs a marriage made in heaven? I don’t think so.
Notice, this production runs under an hour and Aiden Kessler and his friends celebrated Kessler’s 7th birthday by attending last Sunday’s matinee. I watched them laughing as much as I did. Size didn’t matter. This “Ugly Duckling” has got something for everybody.
Reactions? Comments? E-mail Dale Burrows at entopinion@heraldnet.com or grayghost7@comcast.net.
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