Director: Joyce Levinsohn
Cast: Vanessa Harris, Taryn Bok, Clayton Botha, Jacques Le Roux, Yule Mabhena, Claudine Marais, Shaun Brian Murphy
Where: National Children's Theatre, Parktown
When: Until December 20
I really enjoy minimalist productions where the sets are a series of boxes and the cast change character with the flip of a hat - it offers so much scope for the imagination.
With so little to help them, the actors have to carry the show. And they do. A talented group of six turn out perfect little cameos one after the other, whether a pigeon cooing on roof, an irate motorist speeding in Central Park, a telephone repair man up a pole, a dopey small-town shopkeeper, a bored schoolchild falling off a bench and many more. Each are finely observed, finely judged and hilarious.
The star of the show, is, of course, Stuart Little, played by Vanessa Harris with a nice combination of innocence and perkiness. You do, of course, have to suspend disbelief.
"Stuart is supposed to be a boy and much smaller," sniffed Junior, but she had no fault to find with Stuart's adventures, as he sails in a boat race, gets dumped out to sea with the garbage and tries to go canoeing on the river.
Some characters are, of course, more developed than others. Shaun Brian Murphy does a slinky portrayal of Snowbell the cat and Taryn Bok plays Margolo, the bird that Stuart befriends.
Music moves effortlessly in and out of the show and the cast have their own well choreographed moments of glory, such the cats prowling the streets of New York by night and the fishy sequence by the river bank. They never put a foot or a note wrong.
It ends strangely, in mid air. Does Stuart find his bird? Does he ever go home? That's what the children want to know perhaps we have to wait for Stuart Little 2. It won't be a hardship if it is as finely tuned as this show.
Stuart Little is fresh, fun and creative, positively brimming with bright ideas. This is theatre at its best.