| Neil Powell as Harold and Alexander Bartfay as Chester in ‘Bunnicula’ (Photos: Andrew Weber/Sentinel-Tribune) |
The Treehouse Troupe may no longer stalk the countryside bringing portable theater to area schools, but
the spirit lives on in the more settled environs of Joe E. Brown Theatre.
Starting tonight the course that replaced the actual touring troupe will present "Bunnicula," a
theatrical adaptation of the beloved children’s book by Deborah and James Howe.
And if the reaction of the one little guy in attendance at Wednesday’s dress rehearsal is any indication,
the comical adventures of the Monroes and their pets will find great favor as well.
There’s no doubt who this play is pitched to. It does open with Harold the dog played by Neil Powell
chewing on a shoe, and continues with plenty of comic scenery chewing by the whole cast. The acting is
broad, with everything turned up a notch.
Harold is your usual faithful, but easily distracted dog, and his buddy Chester the cat (Alexander
Bartfay) rule the roost, or at least they think they do.
Chester deems himself superior to all, including the clueless humans.
Then the family finds an abandoned bunny at the movie theater, and since they were seeing
"Dracula," dub him Bunnicula (played by a stuffed creator and Brittany Pausch).
Chester and Harold share a love of books – the cat reads them, the dog eats them. He’s reading Edgar
Allen Poe at the time, and the arrival of bunny and certain strange occurrences involving vegetables
sucked white, spur his suspicions.
But the more Chester tries to communicate his concerns to the humans, the more trouble he gets into. He
even gets banished to the outdoors.
| Cast of ‘Bunnicula’ |
The family features a somewhat pompous college professor father played by Christian Lengyel, a bossy
lawyer mother Ann Monroe, a much put upon teen-age brother (Dylan Stretchbery) and the pesky, tomboy
little sister (Brittany Moran).
Their role is basically to run around and react to the animals’ doings. Bartfay and Powell do a wonderful
job of projecting their distinct animal natures with minimal costuming. Harold wears the shoe he’s
chewing on in the last scene.
Pausch is a mime, and covered in a grey tunic relies on her expressive face to provide clues as to what,
if anything, Bunnicula is thinking.
There’s a few songs interspersed to highlight the action. Powell, in what must have been a piece of
fortuitous casting, accompanies the songs on piano. That gives them a family sing-along feel.
I never had a dog who could do that, but then these are some special pets.
