Go, Dog. Go! at UMD Delights its Target Audience
Paul Brissett, Duluth News Tribune
February 5, 2015
You COULD cut corners on a theatrical production for kids; they’re easily amused.
But the actors, designers and technicians involved in staging Go, Dog. Go! at UMD didn’t. They were mindful not only of their audience but also their instructors, who would be evaluating, in addition to technical expertise, their professionalism.
The result is a delightful adaptation by Allison Gregory and Steven Dietz of P.D. Eastman’s classic book for preschoolers, directed by Rebecca Katz Harwood.
With a 6:30 p.m. curtain and 75-minute running time to accommodate their target audience’s bedtimes, it’s a riot of color, movement, sight gags and silliness that had the audience giggling from the get-go when it opened Thursday at UMD’s Marshall Performing Arts Center. The production even offered special children’s playbills that included silly riddles about dogs: “What dog is the best at telling time?” “A watchdog.”
The show opened with Joe Cramer as MC Dog performing a silent routine that was almost Chaplinesque as he struggled with a spring-loaded chair and fumbled with a cap found on-stage until a young audience member called out “It’s a cap!” “Got it before I did,” Cramer ad libbed.
Soon the set, simple but splashed with polka-dots in primary colors, designed by Jenna Mady, was swarming with dogs: Red Dog, Yellow Dog, Green Dog, Blue Dog and Spotted Dog.
They worked. They played. They snuck flashlights under the covers at night. They performed a dance to percussion by bubble wrap.
Virtually the entire play was in broad pantomime, with a lot of sight gags, and actors creating sound effects with their voices.
The show has a light and lively musical score by Michael Koerner, performed onstage by Music Director Andy Kust. Unfortunately, Kust’s keyboard was amplified and the actors’ voices were not, rendering recitations of the book’s text and lyrics of the songs hard to understand.
Costumer Designer Heather Olson’s approach was “less is more.” Each dog’s costume was a primary color, but the only canine features were floppy ears and (impressively wag-able) tails.
The show sacrifices the “instructional” elements of the book, which carefully contrasts concepts such as “in/out,” “over/under” and “work/play,” but offers laughter and music instead. The 40 percent or so of Thursday’s audience at whom the show was really aimed seemed to have no complaint.
