Theater Show

Yesterday Tess, Lenny, and I went to see the show White. It was a delightful little piece of children's theater, lasting 40 minutes. Two characters, Cotton and Wrinkle live in a white world. The play opens with their morning routines as they wake up, wash, eat breakfast, and then begin their work--to care for several birdhouses. Whenever they come across a piece of color, they "put it in the bin," and go back satisfied to their white world.

The big event is when the eggs arrive. They fall from the sky and Wrinkle and Cotton catch them, give them little hats, kiss them, and put them in the houses. But then, a red egg falls! Wrinkle insists that Cotton put it in the bin, but Cotton doesn't want to. After they go to sleep, Cotton sneaks out and retrieves the egg and vows to care for it in secret.

It was at this point that Tess got upset. She didn't like the tension in the least. She had been sitting by herself, laughing along, and when the conflict arose, she turned to me and said, "I want to go home, Mommy." I took her into my lap, and we stayed, but so long as the tension built, she was really uncomfortable.

In the morning, bits of color have popped up everywhere. For a while Cotton and Wrinkle try to hide or ignore the color, but eventually they just confess to each other that they really like other colors, and they accept and celebrate them.

Once this resolution was reached, Tess visibly relaxed. The play ended with bits of color exploding from the bin, and Tess ran to collect the pieces of tissue paper.

This is the set after the play was finished:

 Tess wanted to go meet Wrinkle. She was very shy, but wanted to speak to him anyhow. The other actor, however, she had no interest in him. She couldn't even remember his name. When we talk about the show, she talks about Wrinkle and the other guy--even after I told her a couple of times that his name was Cotton. Funny to me.

 Collecting color and giving it to Len:

This is the second show I've taken Tess to see. The first one was in support of a friend who runs a company. Tess still talks about that Coyote show. And, as chance would have it, we ran into that very same friend and her daughter at White yesterday. They were there with another mutual friend from the storytelling world. It was so fun to run into them.

We all really enjoyed the show. I enjoyed watching Tess take it in and respond to the experience. And the theme of this play was really clever and enjoyable.