Dahl's Crocodile a Symbol of our Times

Roald Dahl understood better than most writers how cruel and difficult the grown up world could be, and how it was the grown ups that made it that way. He invented a language for it with words like grumptious describing a greedy horrid creature and bopmuggered for something very difficult.   Dahl was able to create truly difficult horrible situations for children’s plots and then allow the children (and sometimes animals) to become heroes.  The delightful magical  tuneful production of Roald Dahl’s Enormous Crocodile The Musical brought to Chicago’s charming Studebaker Theatre in the glorious Fine Arts Building through a collaboration between the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival and the Roald Dahl Story Company is at once a kids show and an allegorical tale for the grown ups.   At this difficult moment in history it is impossible not to see the lumbering croc puppet (lustfully and greedily played by dynamo Chelsea D Silva ) that is seeking out children to eat as a metaphor for ICE. I don’t think I was the only one in the audience that saw the animals cheering themselves on to Be Brave as stand ins for our Minnesota neighbors. In fact that song should become an anthem for protests adding to the classics.  I cried at the relevance.

Developed and directed by Emily Lim  who enlisted puppet designers Toby Olié and Daisy Beattie along with costume and set designer Fly Davis,to create an immersive environment of ever changing art and action that will captivate audience members of any age.  And we the audience get an action of our own to do, enlivening and emboldening us to get involved. In the end, coming together as a community ends the danger and terror and the plot wraps up in a very funny way. 

We are completely lucky that this swashboggling show will go on even as the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival has come sadly to an end for this year:  Roald Dahl’s Enormous Crocodile The Musical  is playing through February 21st at the Studebaker Theatre at 400 South Michigan Avenue: there are LOTS of subsidized student matinees so everyone very young and very old can go.  There are FREE DANCE PARTY WORKSHOPS: Following the 1pm matinees on February 4, 11, and 18, join one of our artists on the 7th Floor (Studio 732) for a free 20-minute dance party workshop at 2:20pm! Fun for the whole family, no RSVP required. For tickets and information go to https://www.fineartsbuilding.com/events/the-enormous-crocodile/

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