Mix of Munsch and music all energy

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DAVID LIPNOWSKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Dorothy Carroll isn�t phoning in her performance as Meeya Maybe at PTE.

You can't munch on too much Robert Munsch, especially over the Christmas holidays.

That would appear to be the guiding principle of Prairie Theatre Exchange, which, starting today, is presenting its 17th show based on the works of the popular Ontario-based children's writer.

This year's production, Munscha Meeya (with apologies to certain Swedish pop groups), is going the musical route for only the second time in PTE's history with its Christmas cash cow.

The show consists of five 10-minute segments drawn from Munsch books going back as far as 1970. Director Arne MacPherson is promising young audiences something that's fast, large and loud.

"If you know the stories then you'll totally recognize the stories," said MacPherson, a prominent Winnipeg actor known for his work with Shakespeare in the Ruins.

"The words that you hear are pretty much what Robert Munsch wrote, but it's really fun for kids because they see it in such a different way than they see it when they see the pictures in book."

Cramming five stories and multiple musical numbers into one 50-minute production works well with Munsch's characteristic storytelling style, MacPherson says.

"There's no fat on these stories. They get right to the point."

He says the bigger challenges were posed by elaborate set changes and the larger-than-life story lines in such well-known Munsch books as Stephanie's Ponytail and brand new stories like Down the Drain.

"The challenges are always just about figuring out how to present the stories on stage and especially in a way that can then tour all over Manitoba," MacPherson said.

"These stories have insane things happening in them, like this kid ends up down at the bottom of a drain when he gets sucked down the bathtub."

Munscha Meeya is only the second time PTE has incorporated musical numbers into its Munsch holiday productions.

"It really works," MacPherson said. "The stories are so rhythmic and there's so much repetition on the stories, kind of like a song."

Winnipeg playwright Joseph Aragon is lending his voice and what he modestly describes as "competent" piano playing to the production, singing in the voices of a wide range of characters from grandmothers to irate bank managers.

"We're performing all of the music ourselves, live piano playing and all that," said Aragon, who is known for the large-scale musical comedies he presents at the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival.

"It's just really, really high energy. Energy, energy, energy all the way through."

This is one of the first times Aragon has appeared on stage rather than behind the scenes and the first time he's been involved in a production tailored to young children.

"Because it's a children's show it's an entirely different way of acting," he said. "It's extremely stylized, extremely heightened."

teghan.beaudette@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 19, 2009 C9