Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Bonobo Review the longer version

Well, not too much longer because now I have to go pack the trailer for our weekend camping trip before I get too tired to see straight. Oh yeah, I don't see straight ever anyway. Never mind, I have lots of time.

The Leaky Heaven Circus in Bonobo
is at the Russian Hall in Strathcona until August 22.

We got down to the Russian Hall about at 7pm last night to get "2 for 1 at the door" preview tickets. I drove my sister and brother-in-law's other car (by the way, the Sub is taken, in case you got that email that I sent out that they are giving it away). Their other car is a Taurus station wagon that seats 6, so I could fit five kids and me inside. It had all of their camping gear in it too, and I'm pretty sure I sat on my sister's hat all the way to Vancouver.

Anyway, we got there, and there's this Happyland Carnival happening on the street outside the theatre. There are carnival booths with jarred oddities to look at, and a dog-girl, and lots of orphans and other weird characters and games of course and a Russian insulter who you can throw a pie at for a loonie. The kids took a look around and asked if they could wait in the car. They were so afraid to be embarrassed or associated with weirdness or something, but I pocketed and keys and told them we were going to the carnival. I had to play a bit to get them going, but they came around. They shot super-hero toys off of shelves with an air gun and popped balloons with darts and even won the shell game (I got tricked) but they wouldn't dance in the parade. Our son threw a pie and missed. It was lovely and weird and good.

Then the show started. It's based on the ape-language research that was done in the 80s in the States. What I liked most about it was how it captured the simulatneous earnest good-intention and total otherness of research about human beings talking to chimpanzees. I remember feeling a prickly thrill back then, when I read about an ape making up a sentence to ask the scientist to chase him and tickle him. This moment is in the play. But at the same time it's off-the-wall silly and irreverent and philosophical and smart and acrobatic. There are children in it and a dog. The actors are all wonderful. Costumes, sets, lighting very effective. I got prickles again but I was also falling over laughing and groaning at lame jokes and marvelling at the acrobatic skill of the actors and the wonderful musicians who played at the side of the stage.

The kids were all stiff and tense at first, wouldn't sit in the first row (they've been to Leaky Heaven shows before) but they wished they had sat there when Matata, the Mommy ape, simultaneously mused in french about the meaning of life and made a banana split which she then fed to the kids who were still immune enough to embarassment to sit in the first row.

This week my children and their cousins have been feeling like they are too old for things that they loved just a little while ago: campfire night at my daycamp, the Granville Island water park. It's sad to see them rush up to something with that same joy then back away and close up into a shell of self-protection. I know I have a short time to chase and tickle them back to child-like silliness before they just refuse, and act way too grown up for a few years. Luckily they have my genes, so they'll likely start acting like silly babies again before they are 25, but in the meantime....

So if you have a 12 year old, or a 15 year old, maybe you should take him or her to Bonobo. Go early and experience a full hour of Happyland too. Bring quarters and loonies for the insulter and the balloon pop and go feel prickly about people connecting with apes and with themselves. Or go for some other reason. I know you'll like it no matter what.

question: how come I still don't feel grown up?

mompoet - I can still get them to play Balderdash all night, and that's a good thing

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