Let your wild thing party at the Pavilion
Don’t let your children read this story if you’re taking them to see Where the Wild Things Are at Pavilion Theatre this weekend.
We don’t want to spoil the surprise.
We certainly don’t want to let them know they will be the wild things — complete with masks — when they enter the theatre.
And, beware, parents, there will be a wild rumpus at the end before you are all sent home to bed without your supper.
The presentation is what director Kim Selody calls guided-play experience, once designed to connect with the younger set at whom the play is directed.
Selody saw it performed in the Tag Theatre in Scotland and knew it would be a way to bring theatre to children in a way that would retain its magic.
The play allows children to “realize their imagination and still play,” Selody said, guided through the story they all likely know so well by Max.
By engaging the audience, he said, they can control the monsters.
What’s scary to a three-year-old, for example, might seem babyish to a seven year old — and vice versa.
This way, each wild-thing audience member creates their own scary moments in their heads.
Questions will still need to be asked, Selody said, as the play continues.
The audience will be asked why Max behaved the way he did, why he was sent to bed, all ways of deconstructing the story while retaining the young audience’s attention.
Selody has taken the play on tour to Japan twice and found its popularity soared, especially with children who have attention-deficit disorder — and their parents.
“Max is a kid who acts out all the time,” he said, “and then has this experience of letting his wild person out.
“And, we found in Japan the kids were totally engaged by it and sat there and watched it all.”
Although recognized as a child’s tale, the story by Maurice Sendak is filled with metaphors and moments that will resonate with adults, too, Selody said — even in their masked disguise as wild things.
The play, produced in association with the Manitoba Theatre for Young Children, is geared to those ages four to eight.
School matinees continue to Friday, Nov. 2, with another performance on Monday, Nov. 5.
Public performances are Saturday, Nov. 3, and Sunday, Nov. 4, at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Tickets are at the Kamloops Live Box Office, 1025 Lorne St., 250-374-5483, or here.
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