How to Catch A Star adaptor, director, and tech wizard Jared Mezzocchi leads this debut that serves up truly jaw-dropping visuals for a full hour of exploratory theater, guaranteed to amaze the eyes for any patrons, even its most youngest.
The Kennedy Center is a bigger pond than the Shark is used to. But, predictably (and…tiringly) she tilted and toddled at full thrash toward the Family Theater to catch How to Catch A Star, a new, locally grown play for young audiences. My daughter, with an aquatic nickname born of her voracious energy and full set of chompers, is admittedly a little young for a production that’s recommended at 3+. But the book that the play is based on is by visionary author Oliver Jeffers, who writes beautiful and educational tomes that the Shark has rated “Most Tolerable” and “Most Chewable” for several months running.
Like many of Jeffers’ stories, the theatrical version of How to Catch a Star follows a cyclical journey that runs through many different scales, from cosmic to microscopic, with the aim of teaching through a sense of wonder at each scale. To this end, the arc of the play follows a Boy (Dallas Tolentino) and his Penguin companion (Raven Wilkes) in their quest to, you guessed it, catch a star. After his Dad (Jonathan Feuer) tries to put him to bed, the Boy and his flightless bird try all kinds of ways to catch a star, from lassoing it to trying to reach it from the family dock to riding in a pretend/paper airplane. When the latter sort of works, the Boy finds himself crash landed on the moon, where he meets a Martian (Jonathan Hsu) who is having similar transportation difficulties. Fixing both of these problems occupy the entirety of the show, while discovering new things about themselves and their world and surmounting what feels like dozens of obstacles.
The plot is familiar. Not from the source book, which gets a massive expansion with borrowed elements from other Jeffers’ books, but from following the Shark around as she bounces from activity to activity, trying to discover the next solution to the most immediate problem. In that sense, there’s an authenticity in the meandering nature of the story and a joy in the absurdity of the solutions that work. As the Boy figures out that he has to jump off the Moon to get back to Earth or is given the hammer he needs to fix a ship, Tolentino exudes freshness and surprise in a turn at the ebullience and earnestness that is typified in Young Audiences acting style common in DC, and, to be frank, in the Young Audiences themselves. The entire cast invigorates the wandering script with their investment in its wonder.
What invigorates the audience, however, is How to Catch a Star’s technical magic, especially in projections. Designer Olivia Sebesky takes a bold and deeply affective tactic by using stop-motion techniques and impressions of children’s common materials (chalk, construction paper, etc). This simple start becomes layered, sometimes through increasing complexity or through interaction with the actors onstage. The Boy’s initial plane flight, marked with a projection of an infinite tunnel of folding paper elicited an unironic “Wow!” from the Shark.
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Also impressive, and somewhat emblematic of the show as a whole, is an opening bit with a lovingly constructed doll house that opens up into an equally gorgeous puppet theater. A camera projects a live video feed onto the downstage scrim as Dad manipulates planets and lights on the inside of this solar system in miniature. Stunning, to be sure. Transcendent, even. But the lessons that Dad tries to impart in the bit don’t sink in or return later in the script. You could remove that house from the show entirely, and you would lose some wow factor, but nothing in the narrative. What’s really lost in the technical hullabaloo and amazement is the value of a simple well-told story. Mezzocchi has expanded on the source of How to Catch a Star admirably, but hasn’t found the right way to distill the sprawl to interrelated and necessary parts.
Practically, this means that How to Catch a Star strays far over the promised 45 minutes to an hour. This may not sound like a big deal to you, but it’s a game changer for a parent. Especially when you’ve got a Shark on your hands. The first 15 minutes were solid and attentive. The next 15 were mollified by goldfish crackers (Dear Kennedy Center House Management, I am SO SORRY for the crumbs, but I had no choice. The People were revolting). The third quarter hour was restless, and required me to break out the pacifier that I had promised myself was only for sleeping. But those last, unexpected 15 minutes were, for all practical purposes, a time out hug preventing the Shark from breaching into the stairway. The Shark wasn’t alone in her discomfiture; the entire audience was at a rolling boil by the time the bows came around.
But despite her wriggling, the Shark still tapped her fists together as we were exiting in the ASL sign for “more.” Which is fair; How to Catch a Star finds some wonderful technique, especially in design, which I would love to see more of on DC YA stages. Visually-oriented learners will especially enjoy the show and want more. And maybe in future versions, the creators will find the more in a little bit less time. But until then, they have a solid adaptation that is sure to get a lot of love from Young Audiences.
How to Catch a Star Adapted and directed by Jared Mezzocchi from the book by Oliver Jeffers. Featuring Jonathan Feuer, Jonathan Hsu, Raven Wilkes, and Dallas Tolentino. Music by Zak Engel. Choreography by Orange Grove Dance. Scenic and Projection Design by Olivia Sebesky. Costume Design by Jeannette Christensen. Lighting Design by Peter Leibold. Sound Design by Christopher Baine. Playwrighting collaboration with Jennifer Barclay. Properties by Patti Kalil. Puppet Fabrication by Matt Reckaweg. Produced by the Kennedy Center Reviewed by Alan Katz.
My favorite shark!!! Really enjoyed the review.