(Foreground) Haydee Canovas, Eduardo Milpas, Julio Samayoa.
Carol Balogh, Jay Marie Padilla, Marcia Stadler in Henny Penny.
Photo: Teatro Tercera Llamada
Henny Penny
A Bilingual Children’s Play for the Whole Family
Una Obra de Teatro, bilingue, para Toda la Familia
De Carlos-Manuel
Directora Jay Marie Padilla
Review by Keith Waits
Entire contents copyright © 2015 by Keith Waits. All rights reserved.
Every theatre company wants to broaden their audience, and Teatro Tercera Llamada is no exception. Breaking away from their adult productions, they have mounted a charming children’s play written by company co-founder Carlos Manuel. It is also a departure from the TTL custom of only producing plays in Spanish. Henny Penny is a bilingual script, moving back and forth between Spanish and English as the story unfolds.
Running about 50 minutes, the story, more commonly called Chicken Little in the United States, is a fairly simple story of Henny (Haydee Canovas), her friends Puck Duck (Carol Balogh), Miss Sue Goose (Marcia Stadler) and Tomas Turkey (Eduardo Milpax). As Ramon Rooster (Julio Samayoa) investigates a theft of a loaf of bread and a bottle of honey, songs are sung and members of the young audience are recruited to come onstage and serve as jurors in the trial of Fox Deluxe (Jay Marie Padilla), the dastardly villain of the piece.
It is all quite silly in the best sense, delivered with low-key style by a game cast of mixed experience. The better performances seem tied to the more colorful costume pieces, so that the women have the greater impact, with Marcia Stadler a deft physical comedienne and Carol Balogh a nasally delight quacking forlornly through the action. Haydee Canovas is a fine Henny, and Jay Marie Padilla, who also directs, a bright and puckish antagonist.
Henny Penny is cute and amiable in its approach to engaging children in the theatrical experience. The balance of the two languages is well managed so that it works equally for English and Spanish audiences.
Henny Penny
Teatro Tercera Llamada
Donde/Where: The Vault 1031
1031 South Sixth St.
Louisville, KY 40203
502-386-4866
teatrotercerallamada.com
Dates/Fechas:
6/11/2015 6:00pm
6/13/2015 6:00pm
6/14/2015 3:00pm
6/18/2015 6:00pm
6/20/2015 6:00pm
6/25/2015 6:00pm
6/27/2015 6:00pm
6/28/2015 3:00pm
[box_light]Keith Waits is a native of Louisville who works at Louisville Visual Art during the days, including being one of the hosts of PUBLIC on ARTxFM, but spends most of his evenings indulging his taste for theatre, music and visual arts. His work has appeared in Pure Uncut Candy, TheatreLouisville, and Louisville Mojo. He is now Managing Editor for Arts-Louisville.com.[/box_light]
