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The Cay
By Gayle Cornelison
Adapted from the novel by Theodore Taylor
Directed by Amanda Delheimer
Produced by Adventure Stage Chicago
At Vittum Theatre
1012 N. Noble
Chicago, IL
Call 773-342-4141, tickets 417 - $14 - $10 for children 14 and under
For children age 8 and up
Family matinee: 2 pm every Saturday & Sunday
Education matinees: 10:30 am Tuesdays thru Fridays
Running time is 85 minutes without intermission
Through February 17, 2008
Tale of survival offers positive living lessons
Adventure Stage Chicago at Vittum Theatre offers a fine lesson in survival, tolerance and friendship that finds an elder West Indies Black man teaching a young precocious white 12 year old boy how to live with a handicap: blindness.
Zach Laliberte (Phillip), the teen and Eugene Parker (Timothy) plays the 70 year old black Islander. Both have a fine stage chemistry that the children in the audience can easily relate. Set in 1942 in the West Indies during World War II when Nazi submarines were attacking ships headed to England, Phillip and his mother travel by ship from the Dutch West Indies back to Miami. Phillip ends up on a raft with Timothy in the Atlantic Ocean.
Timothy starts Phillip’s survival lessons by rationing their fresh water supply as the two (with a cat) drift with the ocean current. They landed on an isolated cay surrounded by coral and sharks. Phillip’s head injury rendered him blind during his months with Timothy. We witness Phillip’s initial racism that comes from his parents who were raised in Virginia. The boy eventually bonds with the even tempered senior whose survival skills allow the ship wrecked folks to live on a desolate cay.
I liked this morality play as it effectively teaches children lessons in survival, friendship and tolerance. It is a tribute to the human spirit as we see Phillip overcome his blindness. He eventually helps the ailing Timothy survive and the two outlast a hurricane. Meghan Brown and Allisa-Zee Hartmann are the swift dancers and kokens that underscore the story on Courtney O’Neill’s set with Mikhail Fiksel’s sound and original music.
The kids in the audience were totally enamored with the action. Adventure Stage Chicago has mounted another worthy children’s production.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed: January 30, 2008
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