A review of Theatre at Tarleton Young People Series Presents “Brother’s Grimm Spectaculathon”.

The play was entertaining despite being a little convoluted. All of the actors gave a beautiful and believable performance.

The costumes and set were very fitting for the stories and time period that the play takes place in.

The lighting was quite easy on the eyes with light shades of blue and purple being used to light the stage.

The sound effects were fitting, however they were not very memorable.

On Saturday Oct. 26 Theatre at Tarleton gave us a hilarious production of Don Zolidis’s “Brother’s Grimm Spectaculathon”. The play is centered around two narrators and a core group of actors playing out classic tales such as “Cinderella” and “Rapunzel” in a lightning quick marathon. The core theme that sets this play apart from other retellings of these stories is that it represents itself as a comedic piece with meta humor, such as the play’s many mentionings of Mickey mouse, and slapstick humor.

The play was directed by Shayla Moose, a Tarleton graduate and current staff member, and starts off with “Narrator 1”, played by Kimber Bills, walking on to the stage and giving a professional introduction. “Narrator 2”, played by Tyler Krumm, then enter from the back of the auditorium towards the stage while imitating a classic wrestling announcer.

After some quick banter, the two narrators make a joke about how “The Mouse”, a.k.a Mickey Mouse, has ruined these classical tales and they tell the audience about how
they will be retelling these tales as they were recorded by the two Grimm brothers.

“The Understudy”, played by Robby Green, then enters to complain about the lack of food provided for the “actors”. After this the story part of the play began with the two narrators taking a seat.

Next a poor girl, who is later revealed to be Gretel and is played by Rylie Fisher, enters. She complains about how poor she is as the narrators supply context. The poor girl then makes three separate deals with “The Devil”, played by Kyllie Avery, “The Enchantress”, played by Katelynn Medina, and “Rumpelstiltskin”, played by Micaela Medina. The poor girl then marries a prince, played by Robby Green, becomes rich and has a beautiful daughter, played by Marsella Palmer, who is soon revealed to be “Rapunzel”. Once Rapunzel turns into a teenager the three characters return to collect the price paid by the mother for all her fortune. The price is revealed to be Rapunzel and after arguments made between the three characters, the Enchantress takes Rapunzel and locks her in a tower.

We then jump to the story of “Hansel and Gretel”, which relieves to us who the that the mother is actually Gretel and connects her to the three character that she makes her deal with.

After that a progressive version of the story of Snow-White plays out. This reveals the Enchantress to be the evil witch who cursed Snow White and connects her to the rest of the story.

The next story that is performed is the story of “The Devil’s Grandmother”, which has the Devil and The Devil’s Grandmother, played by Mary Claunch, going on a trip to the Grand Canyon, after the Devil’s Grandmother is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. After reaching the Grand Canyon the grandmother dies causing the devil to curse the doctor to become the dwarf who helps Snow White. The story then ends with a hilarious version of Cinderella, which has the understudy playing every character other than Cinderella herself, who is played by Madelynn Henson, due to all the other actors getting sick from eating the beef from the food rack off stage.

The play then gives a quick and hilarious two man run through of all the events that happen in the classic version of Cinderella including the two step-sister cutting off parts of their feet to fit into the golden slipper. After that it is revealed that no one was sick, as all the other actors really wanted to see if the
understudy would actually play all of the characters in Cinderella.

Finally, the play ends with a lightning round recap of all that happened.

The play was written in 2007 by Don Zolidis who, according to SamuelFrench.com, is a former high school and middle school theatre teacher who holds a B.A. in English from Carleton College and an M.F.A. in playwriting from the Actor’s Studio Program at the New School University. His most noteworthy pieces include “The Doctor In Wonderland”, “White Buffalo”, and “Anti-Social”.

Overall, I would say that the performance was a remarkable success and I hope to see more performances with this level of energy and cast chemistry.