Schmee's Dinosaur and Balagan's King Arthur: You Know, For Kids

Along with park shows, cabarets and a general experimental bent, the Summer months are also one of the few times out of the year where theater companies happily embrace programming for the younger set. Two local fringe companies are currently offering outdoor productions specifically aimed at children; Theater Schmeater's Arrh! A Dinosaur Ate My Space Ship and Balagan Theater's King Arthur and the Knights of the Playground.

Both of these shows are world premiere productions, written by Seattle playwrights, employ a child-like point of view and use adult actors to play those children. The differences between the two can be found in their respective approaches to story telling.

In the case of the Schmee's Arrh! A Dinosaur Ate My Space Ship, written by Bret Fetzer and Juliet Waller Pruzan, the audience is being treated to a 3rd grade class' school presentation. The production's strength resides in the fact that it very well could have been written by a group of elementary school students.

Which is not to say that care wasn't taken in the crafting of the piece (by no means is this remotely similar to Matt Fontaine's Are We Scared?, a piece performed at Open Circle that was based on the transcripts of conversations with children, which made it an organically unique and enchanting experience). Fetzer and Pruzan riddle the script with touches of an adult sensibility: Puns, meta-commentary, and pop cultural references abound in the script; all the better to entertain the parents. Childlike elements abound however, as when time is slowed down, or when gravity is re-instated by having the assistant stage manager raise her hand and saying "gravity," or when sharks, dinosaurs and aliens are given the ability to speak English by improving their intelligence.

But the mechanics of the story are decidedly juvenile, with a lot of imagination being displayed within the directorial and design elements. A large tent becomes a time machine; cast members freak out because their parents are in the audience; little squabbles break out regarding an actor's refusal to adhere to a script; the dinosaur in the title does not, in fact, eat the titular space ship; and so on.

The performances are suitably outsized and energetic; these are led by Julia Griffin as the mastermind behind the production, Tracy Leigh's hilarious turn as an evil scientific genius, Anna Giles' Mabel -- an earnest and innocent audience surrogate. Finally, Aaron Allshouse's performance as Tig, the T. Rex that takes over the proceedings with his machinations and adamant appetites, asserts his trademarked ability at being the outsized center of kid-like glee without hogging all the focus away from other performances in the ensemble.

Dinosaur strength is also its main detraction; the seemingly formless charm and sense of whimsy, makes its running time seem aimless. However, for its intended audience, the show would seem to be wholly entertaining (your correspondent is not in the desired demographic), and its message is delivered subtly, without calling undue attention to itself. A spoonful of sugar, indeed.

Saturdays and Sundays at 5:00p.m., through August 7 // Volunteer Park Amphitheater // Free (donations accepted)

The approach taken by King Arthur and the Knights of the Playground, the second of Balagan Theater's forays into kid-centric outdoor summer programming is different primarily in the sense that the stories, which are adaptations of the tales surrounding the Arthurian legend where the locale and milieu has changed to a modern schoolyard playground, are more focused; its morals are easier to discern and the entertainment offered is aimed at both children and adults.

Episodic by dint of the desire to cover as much of the source material as possible (which is both a strength and a weakness), the production is able to make room for a Voltron-like mega-warrior, and a knock knock joke battle that looks like the fighting in Mortal Kombat. Also, the world in the show reflects a real life schoolyard in that there are multiple subset of games that are going on; not everyone in the world of the show is dedicated to playing Knights of the Round Table. Some kids play space pirates, others play Lord of the Rings, and still others are playing My Little Pony.

By melding all of these worlds together, Sam Hagen and Matt Smith (creative supervisors for the production; Hagen also directs, while Smith was in charge of coordinating the playwrights) are able to create a variety platter of styles that center around the telling of the titular myths. These are five stories, some more widely known than others, that vary wildly in their telling, though all in the service of delivering the myth's central messages in as entertaining a way as possible.

Much like Balagan's last Summer production, Greetings from Styx, King Arthur manages to keep the darkness and strangeness that permeates the source material (such as the twisted triangle between Lancelot, Arthur and Guinevere; the petty nature of the sibling rivalry between Arthur and Morgan), while keeping things decidedly kid-friendly. This is especially important as Arthur (played by Ben McFadden) becomes increasingly power-hungry, altering the rules of the game in a self-serving, if well intentioned, manner.

The realization that the production is clicking along on all cylinders comes early, during the knight's first quest (written by Jaime Cruz), when the group of noble knights battle with a pack of hellhounds. The battle is quick and fierce, yet cartoonish and giddy making; it quickly becomes evident that you've been swept along with the piece's energy.

That energy fluctuates as the episodes' focus goes from epic adventure to lyrical relationships. This latter is best exemplified in Paul Mullin's version of the Balin/Balan tale, where the brothers with similar names are separated and later face, fight and kill each other, as had been previously prophesied. The piece achieves a graceful tone that is touching in the care the two characters provide each other throughout.

Other pieces (written by Maggie Lee, Joanna Horowitz, Matt Smith and Juliet Waller Pruzan) each succeed in their own way, and while some churlish adults may complain about the lack of cohesion, the fact that nary a child in the audience was able to take their eyes off of the proceedings should be all the proof necessary that the show is a success.

Combine all of this with exceedingly clever design elements, and a strong ensemble (so strong that singling out any one performance would be greatly unfair to others in the cast; truly, the cast's work in this show is spotless), and you have a production that children and adults alike will be able to enjoy.

Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00p.m., through July 31 // Magnuson Park // Free (donations accepted)