By Nico and Eli
Shows at MTYP are reviewed by children. This is a deliberate strategy to judge children’s theatre by its intended audience instead of by unreliable standards of adults humans. We are still trying to find a good way of conveying the voice of our children critics, so experimentation is still the order of the day. Let us know if you have ideas on how to convey the words of our informants.
A little bit of context: Peg and the Yeti is a show about make believe. Peg lives on a fishing boat with her parents but has an adventurous spirit. She decides one day that she wants to climb the world’s highest mountain, Everest. Her parents then use the objects on the boat to create this adventure for Peg. Of course she also meets the Yeti.
Now for our critics. Eli goes to lots of theatre and is very artistic. He likes anime, selling his handmade stickers, and plays with audience participation. His favourite play so far is The Chronicles of Narnia at MTYP. Nico is new to the blog. According to him: “Why do I love theater? Because it’s fun. A lot of people practice for months. And they all show it to us to make us laugh, have fun.” His favourite play he’s seen so far is Les Fourberies de Scapin at Theatre Cercle Molière.
As Eli says, “okay, so it’s a family of fishermen with a daughter, I think, named Peg. The daughter wanted to go on an adventure to find Mount Everest. So the parents kind of made it seem like she was climbing Mount Everest on the boat. In his version describing the story, Nico explained “[Peg] lived all [her] life on a boat, and she wanted to climb a mountain, the Mount Everest. And she tried to climb it in her imagination.” In the world of the play, the three characters are playing make believe using the things that would already be on the boat to make the story come to life.”
Nico liked the staging where the audience was on either side of a rectangular stage because he could see people laughing and having fun on the other side. For Eli, the set was identifiable as a boat because “there was the steering wheel thing along with the pier, I think.” Their adults pointed out it made the audience the ocean, which is interesting thematically.
In terms of expectations, neither child was anticipating what happened on stage. Nico said “I thought it was like a show, like a video more”. According to Eli “I thought that it was going to be more like a child wants to go on an adventure, parents say no, child like sneaks away and goes on the adventure anyway. I thought that it was going to be a more literal adventure and not a play for a child”.
They both agreed that the play was funny, but picked different parts. Eli liked the avalanche, created with a parachute and audience participation from small people of the audience. Also, Peg jumping around on boxes. Unfortunately Nico was sad not to be picked for a role – one of the very real risks of asking for volunteers. On the other hand, he did really love when Peg talked to the yeti and interacted with it. (spoilers avoided)
Eli’s favourite character is Peg because she is energetic, ” adventurous and restless.” He elaborates: “I don’t know much about the actual parents. The yeti, I would say, is kind but also gets kind of hangry. I don’t know much about the parents. But they’re good parents. They put on that entire shebang for their kid.” To Nico, the parents helped Peg’s “imagination grow bigger”.
Nico really wanted to climb on the sets and have more audience participation but enjoyed how physical the acting was. He says he thought the hot air balloon wouldn’t work because of his knowledge of Montgolfier. He was pretty enthusiastic about the details.
Overall, Eli ranked this play as “good” and Nico as “okay”. For what it’s worth, their adults ranked it much more highly – but that’s not the point.
Let me know if this format works better for you!
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