REVIEW
Yes, I know Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Musical was only here for a day. But what a sweet day it was.
(I had a fellow audience member ask me why I’d review a piece of theatre that closed before my review came out. To avoid a long multi-pronged answer, I’ll note that I’ve never heard that question asked when a one-off concert is reviewed the next day. What’s the difference?)
The Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences on Tour presentation visited Nashville Children’s Theatre for three performances Monday. If you were there, you know what a wonderful family show it was; if not, I’m going to write about what you missed (in addition to a Keith Urban-Nicole Kidman sighting at the afternoon matinee, which I happily admit was quite exciting to this longtime-fan-of-their-work reviewer).
Emmy Award-winning writer/illustrator Mo Willems (Sesame Street) took his Caldecott Honor-winning 2004 picture book “Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale” and expanded it into a musical with the help of Grammy Award-winning composer Michael Silversher (Elmo in Grouchland). The acclaimed May 2010 opening run at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and two subsequent national tours have been directed by Rosemary Newcott, director of theatre for Youth at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre.
Newcott has made sure the fun, high energy tale of toddler Trixie (former Nashville-based actor Tia Shearer) and her first trip to the laundromat with Dad (Paul Edward Hope) never loses its playfulness or rambunctiousness. She’s also cast brilliantly.
One of this show’s delights is the exuberant choreography of Paige Hernandez. It never disrupts the proceedings by calling attention to itself; all the movement carries the story along as dance should.
Shearer has long known how to present characters whose age (and even gender in the case of People’s Branch Theatre’s The Little Prince) are different from her own. But it’s especially challenging to give us a pre-verbal youngster less than two whose process for viewing the world and communicating to others is so new.
There isn’t a moment where she falters in this, though, from her high-pitched chuckle and the wonder in her face at each new discovery to the explosion of such feelings as frustration and joy that occur at various points. And her remarkable rendition of “Aggle Flaggle Klabble” takes her pre-verbal utterances and makes them emotionally intelligible to the audience.
Hope is great at playing the flustered father, complete with the deer-caught-in-the-headlights look he regularly gets when Trixie does things for which he’s not prepared. Knuffle Bunny was inspired by Willems’ love for his real-life daughter, and Hope beautifully acknowledges that with his lovely take on “Really, Really Love You.”
Brittany Baratz is pitch-perfect as Mom. From the “Tricky with Trixie” opening to the finale, she’s a reassuring presence amid the daddy-daughter chaos. Her warm, soothing singing voice is such a treat; it’s highlighted in “Don’t Worry,” when she sings endearingly about her love for Trixie’s befuddled papa.
Puppeteers Jonathan Atkinson and Andrea Washington winningly round out the cast. They do more than puppet everything from a pigeon (a nod to another Caldecott Honor-winning Willems book, “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!”) to combative clothing (part of a wonderful dream-like sequence when Dad is attempting to retrieve Trixie’s favorite stuffed animal). They also sing, act and dance (Washington is the show’s dance captain), and do it all quite well.
The puppets they animate are designed with ingenuity by Kat Conley, who also oversaw the sharp and effective set design; picture projections by Ryan Wineinger appropriately background each scene while reminding us of the sepia-toned pictures in the book.
Jeff Bruckerhoff’s lights smoothly handle transitions from moments of realism to those of fantasy. Ryan Gastelum’s sound designs keep the actors’ voices and Silversher’s music in crystal-clear balance.
I bet this isn’t the last time we get to see Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Musical in Nashville, whether the tour returns or NCT mounts its own production in the future. I certainly hope it comes back someday. This sweet show is ultimately about family love, and that makes an encore very desirable.
All photos from Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Musical courtesy of The Kennedy Center. Photos are by Carol Pratt.
