Curtains Up Winnipeg

Meet an utterly charming and also unlikely duo, Tad (Hera Nalam)and Birdy (Samuel Benson), and their wonderful friendship. As you can probably guess, Tad is a tadpole and birdy is, well, you can figure it out. We were lucky enough to catch the world premiere at Manitoba Theatre for Young People. This is an example of children’s theatre where the relationship between the two characters is the core of why the piece works as well as it does. It’s got the kind of magic that made you clap your hands if you believed in fairies at Peter Pan.

Birdy lives in the “safest place in the world”, where not much changes from day to day. This all changes when “Tad”, an “aquatic worm” shows up in a glass jar. Whereas Birdy tries to stay safe in the sameness of his life as it is, Tad sparkles with adventure and curiosity to see beyond the horizons of the room where they are situated. As their relationship develops, Birdy realizes that what he has accepted may not actually be what he wants. There are sad bits where the audience feels for Birdy which are handled sensitively in a way that pulls us forward. This is a story about how friendship can help you be brave enough to make incredible transformations happen.

The set and costumes create the world of a child’s bedroom from the perspective of small creatures. The creativity in how the characters use their environment is absolutely delightful. Everything on stage has purpose, and younger children will have a blast guessing how it will all be used. Between the glorious costumes, the oversized painted set and the completely delightful props, it would be easy to get lost in the cute-ness of the aesthetics… but you don’t. It just has a tremendous amount of heart. The incredible physicality of both actors sells it. On one hand you have the particular rocking motion of the bird who flaps and moults and walks in that very familiar bird gait. In contrast you have the more fluid motions of Tad who shifts and changes throughout the show. Their body language conveyed the story of how they had changed without ever losing the quality that made them unique.

I decided to find a child to come to MTYP with me because I, as a middle aged woman, am just not the intended audience for their season. If I judge children’s theatre by the standards of what I like, I’m not being fair. It’s important to find someone who this show is for and let them weigh in. So this is why I offered one of my favourite humans, River Kovacs (10) the job of official Curtains Up children’s consultant, paid in hot chocolate and theatre tickets. This play marks the first time River is working in this role, but she’s already got the theatre bug thanks to a Nana and mom who have made sure she’s exposed to the arts. She has promised to come to the next one. Check out her bio on the contributor’s page.

According to River, this show “makes you feel like anything can be possible!” She also says that everyone is either a little bit more of a Tad or a Birdy in that they embrace change or are afraid of it. She says she is definitely a Birdy but her mom is a Tad. On a scale of bad- not good -okay – good – very good, she rated it as “very good” and says that she would recommend it to her brother and her friends.

In this case, River and I agree: this is a great play. We did both agree that we wanted some more things wrapped up in the ending. For me with my Unwieldy Adult-ish Brain, it was hard to believe that two wild animals with craft supply prosthetics wouldn’t become very decorative predator food. On the other hand, River did believe that it would be a happy ending, but wanted to see Birdy find his flock. Since this show is for River and not me, I’m going to let her have the last word on this one: happy endings for all, and let the whole wide world find them.

This show is River recommended.