Seattlest Pix 09Nov24
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Who knew Dr. Lion was from India?
He's a physician. He's a lion. Duh. We've read Richard Scarry books hundreds of times—both as a wee tot and as a parent—and a subcontinental accent for Busytown's resident physician Dr. Lion never occurred to us. When Auston James' Lion gave Lowly Worm his check-up, we realized it was a perfect detail—and, happily, Seattle Children's Theatre's production of Busytown has perfect details in abundance.
That's good, because one of the most satisfying elements of Scarry's books for kids is all the detail. We wondered ahead of time how the play would handle that, and we were relieved not to see the stage festooned with labels for everything.
We were also relieved to see the banana car, the apple car, the crayon car (which got Little Miss Seattlest to shout "The crayon car! The crayon car!"—we're working on the theatrical etiquette) and, of course, the pickle car.
Playwright Kevin Kling stays true to Scarry's books, which are a series of informational sequences. Kling teases a narrative out of the book, putting Scarry's young hero Huckle Cat front and center and having him tour Busytown to discover what people do all day.
Kling subtly updates Scarry's story, as well, ditching the antiquated gender roles—Grocer Cat, Huckle's father in the books, is Huckle's mother here. Dad is streamlined out—with six actors playing 24 credited roles. Busytown is, as promised, busy.
The details aren't just for kids, either. Understudy MJ Sieber turned in a great performance as Train the Dog. His voice was obviously an homage to Jimmy Stewart, and a sly reference to Bedford Falls winked at the adults in the audience. Similar parent-pleasing moments abound.
A few details don't work as well. Kling's narrative imposed on Scarry's non-narrative produces a subdued finale. Things come to a head, but the climax is forgettable.
There is perhaps one song too many; we'd probably cut Nurse Nellie's ode to the charms of Lowly Worm. (During that song, our daughter declared that she was "done with the play"—with a good hour left. Happily, she liked it better once the song was over.)
And we're not convinced that using a puppet Lowly among human castmates worked, but we're not convinced that an actor hopping around onstage would work, either.
Overall, though, it's a fun show. Little Miss Seattlest was excited to go, and looks forward to going again with her preschool class in June. She was just disappointed Lowly Worm had to take a nap after the show; she wanted to ask him a question. Come to think of it, perhaps the puppet works just fine.
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I looooove Richard Scarry, antiquated gender roles and all. And I'm so jealous Little Miss Seattlest got to see the crayon car in PERSON.
I was even more impressed that they included the train with all the pancakes flying out the window. That was genius.