Kaleidoscope Theatre

HYANNIS – By Natalie deMacedo
ndemacedo@capecodonline.com

 

If you’re familiar with Disney’s “Snow White,” you’ll know Dopey was never known for his coordination.
 

But that all changed on Wednesday morning at the Melody Tent in director-writer David Payton’s version of the fairy tale, performed by Kaleidoscope Children’s Theatre.
 

Dopey (Mac Ash) has special acrobatic skills – he does a headstand, jumps off a bench to touch his feet to his hands, and with his hands at rest on a table picks up the rest of his body off the surface.
 

Speaking of new twists to the old tale, when Snow White (Jamie Dellorco) realizes that Dopey isn’t silly – but deaf – she tells the other dwarfs and teaches them to use sign language. She sings a whole song while signing it at the same time, and – very appropriately – changes Dopey’s name to Friendly.
 

Many of the children in the audience have likely seen the 1937 movie version, so hopefully the changes to the script were as meaningful to them as they were to an adult. Accepting people with disabilities is a good lesson to learn, and learning through a favorite story, rather than a lecture from Mom, can’t hurt.
 

All the dwarfs in the production are played by children who exceeded my expectations – something about 5 to 10 year olds in long fake beards and baggy clothes just draws you in. Additionally, their dancing skills were stellar: The choreography for the children wasn’t complicated, but they kicked their legs high up in the air, mimicking a Russian prisyadka and wowed with cartwheels.
 

Payton wrote all the music and lyrics (as well as dialogue) for the production, and his actors bring it to life. Evil stepmother Krystal Bly has a terrifyingly gorgeous voice and perfect menacing laugh. Dellorco’s voice is, like the character Snow White, innocent and sweet, but not at all powerless.
 

Even if it’s an improvement on Grimm’s 1812 version of the story, Disney’s “Snow White” and Payton’s version include some pretty gory details and a few haunting scenes: The stepmother asks the huntsman (Taylor Santoro) to kill Snow White and return her heart in a box, and then she poisons her with a sleeping apple with hopes that the dwarfs will think she’s dead and bury her alive.
 

Thankfully, a show in bright daylight under a big blue tent removes some of the eerie uneasiness that overshadows the idea of parents plotting to kill their children, but the sunshine doesn’t make the inherent evil any less real.
 

The “Evil-stepmother-screams-every-time-Snow-White-sweetly-taps-her-on-the-shoulder” stunt got old to me after the second time, but kids were still laughing five times later.
 

Kaleidoscope Theatre also worked hard to keep the audience engaged and had some of the children act as the forest animals that find Snow White in the forest. The toddler boy wearing a fuzzy fox mask stole the show. Right after intermission Payton asked the children in the audience to hug and say thank you to whoever brought them to the theater “to make them happy,” which was a touching moment likely appreciated by the adults in the room.
 

If nothing else, you left the theater knowing how to sign the phrase “I love you,” and that just because someone is quiet doesn’t mean he isn’t smart.

 

From the Cape Cod Times here