"Walk Two Moons" Keeps Kids Attention

Reviewed By: Michael Monteiro

Usually you will have to pin me down to get me to sit through a performance filled with children. The crying babies, the constant complaints and questions to the parent, the constant rustling of parents trying to get there children to the bathroom. In a semi-dark children's show, running roughly an hour and a half, I was surprised to see that the only one in the audience becoming even remotely restless was myself. I sat in a theater with roughly three hundred seats, nearly full, with a large chunk of the audience, young children. Never before, have I seen a play captivate a mostly child audience the way "Walk Two Moons" did. Not once in the entire performance did a single child grow restless and need to be taken out, not so much as a whisper was heard.

Tom Arvetis' adaptation based on the novel by Sharon Creech delivers an entrancing story, told in a way that is bot eloquent and simplistic enough for the audience it serves. More importantly in both it's manifestation script-wise as well as in it's direction, it is able to create a performance geared towards children without patronizing them.

The story of Sal (T. Chu McBride) and her over imaginative friend Phoebe (B. Buzan) is a fairly dark one. The play deals with the concepts of death and abandonment at early ages, and had moments that chilled even the most stony of people. Once again however, I scoped the audience for even the slightest stir, and found nothing.

The play in it's entirety covers a lot. It runs a few minutes longer than it should and the play rushes slightly to compensate for the plot's overzealous intricacies. It's a youthful thriller in ways, narrated by out protagonist Sal. the story due to its essence would not have been told nearly as well without two excellent performances from Tanya Chu McBride and Baize Buzan.

Conceptually the play is beautifully directed by Matthew Reeder, and designed. Simon Lashford's set of curtains, a loan car seat, and a large tree create the multiple locations. The rest of the cast give strong performances bouncing around playing multiple characters, again leaving no child in confusion.
"Walk Two Moons" is impressive how it can captivate a kid. It is good because it can captivate an adult.

"Walk Two Moons" runs Nov 5th - Dec. 8th 2011. Fridays at 7:30pm and Saturdays 4pm and 7:30pm: School group performances 10:30am Nov 8, 15,17, 22,30,and Dec. 1,6,7,8. Tickets $12-20