Review: ALLIGATOR PIE at Soulpepper

Children’s poetry can be trite, treacly, or too focused on sharing a moral or life lesson. The best children’s poetry, like children themselves, is a little rambunctious, a lot surreal, and completely anarchic in how it examines social structures from an outsider’s perspective. Shel Silverstein, a master of the craft, knew this well. So does Dennis Lee, beloved Canadian children’s poet and writer of the classic ALLIGATOR PIE, a collection given life in Soulpepper’s revival of the theatrical version by Ins Choi, Raquel Duffy, Ken MacKenzie, Gregory Prest, and Mike Ross.

If you grew up with Lee’s witty wordplay and now write reviews packed with puns, the show, now featuring new contributions by the promising students of the Soulpepper Academy, will feel like a comforting, warm hug from an eccentric elderly relative. Filled with entertainment for adults and small children alike, the succinct 65-minute work is musically sophisticated, visually inventive and wildly silly, weaving in and out of a selection of Lee’s poems like a combination playdate and dreamscape.

The Soulpepper Academy members, Alicia Barban, Belinda Corpuz, Ben Kopp, Ruaridh MacDonald, and Haneul Yi, give energetic and committed performances, cavorting like oversized kids in the free-wheeling production, set in the round under Severn Thompson’s direction. They capture well the vast and capricious emotions characteristic of Children at Play, including and shunning each other at turns, begging to take the juiciest lead roles, and reacting with delight and disgust at stories of clever cats and gloopy stews.

Of course, some of the greatest concerns to children involve attention, care, and worries about fairness, and ALLIGATOR PIE explores these ideas in both metaphorical and literal ways; one child goes through a detailed, trial-and-error process to finally set up a longed-for television, only to have it stolen by burglars in the night; another tries to rid herself of the dreaded “bratty brother” in artfully cruel ways (Lee’s rhymes can get downright sadistic in ways only kids can get away with), only to have him casually rebuff any attack.

The show’s wide-ranging musical influences keep things hopping along, with another number always just around the corner. There’s a Weimar-era cabaret number about missing change from a hole-filled purse, and a Chicago-inflected piece about an inspector so dedicated that, failing to find any suspects, he arrests himself to keep his success rate total. The cast makes this music with guitar, saxophone and accordion, but also with the inventive use of boomwhackers, beach balls, and office supplies. The bubble wrap beats, sharp stapler castanets, and packing tape percussion work impressively well, keeping time even over a sustained stretch.

But there are also slower, more contemplative pieces, lovely a cappella numbers accompanying light-up globes in “I See the Moon” and wistful memories in “I Remember.” It’s not all fun and games being a kid, and Lee’s poems also deal with the realities of change, loneliness, and seeking connection even on the other side of the world. Skating through the ebb and flow of the piece, the cast knows when to move on quickly from a number and when to take a moment to let the mood settle in.

The sophisticated DIY aesthetic of the production found in its instrumentation is also appealing in its use of props. Boxes form TVs and TV stands, a soapbox for speeches, places of magic, mystery, and disappearance, and even the head of an imposing, large-jawed monster defeated by a little girl who stands her ground. The children in the audience also responded enthusiastically to a sketch featuring a box-stacking skyscraper contest, the cartons rising almost impossibly high. Because the show is in the round, you can easily see the excited faces of the children as the cast invites the audience to participate in dances or callbacks.

ALLIGATOR PIE is a delightful experience that skillfully navigates the line between child and adult audiences that poetry can sometimes traverse.

My only disappointment is that the show could use at least 50% more alligator.

Otherwise, it was sweet as pie.

Photo of the cast of ALLIGATOR PIE by Dahlia Katz

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