Who doesn't like a good trickster fable? Whether the hero is a Norwegian teenager named Peer Gynt, a Chinese Monkey named Sun Wu Kong, a West African Spider named Anansi, or our own American Br'er Rabbit, we never tire of hearing how the Clever triumph over the Powerful. Eric Kimmel's tale of a shtetl beset by grouchy goblins determined to spoil its holiday celebration casts demons more annoying than satanic as its villains, a village innkeeper as the property-owning sponsor seeking their eviction. and an itinerant vagabond as the rescuer who puts the bullies to rout—not through violence, but employing the weapons of ridicule and humiliation. In order to stretch this cozy parable to feature length (at least one hour for young-audience marketing), adapters Michael Dailey and Jacob Combs have employed not one, but two literary devices: the first frames the main story in the conceit of a traveling theater troupe re-enacting a legend swaddled in ancient myth—and conveniently excusing the production's low-budget masks, special effects, and other furnishings—while the second adds both a prologue and epilogue involving interactive games with the children in the audience.
The absence of communal pandemonium necessitated by online performance/viewing cannot help but diminish adrenalin levels, despite prodigious smiles and sparkle generated by a four-member cast in service of an adventure inspired by a miracle of modest spectacle and still struggling with household-grade technical equipment (unfiltered lighting instruments, in particular). In a season where the whole world feels like the refugee Maccabees looking for escape from a darkness exceeding Nature's usual solstice gloom, however, Strawdog's family-friendly pageant—in this, its second year, available to cultures previously wary of one another—invites us to acknowledge our fellowship in mutual conviviality.
