Adventure Theatre MTC If You Give a Moose a Muffin

By Genie Baskir • Jul 12th, 2012 • Category: Maryland, Reviews

If You Give a Moose a Muffin
Adventure Theatre MTC
Adventure Theatre MTC, Glen Echo, MD
Through September 2nd
45 minutes
$18
Reviewed July 8th, 2012

Have you ever been to any sort of modern art exhibition where someone always comments loudly at a piece, “I can do that.” Or “My kid does that everyday.” The collected works of Laura Joffe Numeroff are like that, only she writes children’s stories. Numeroff internalized Dr. Suess’s The Cat in the Hat books and created her own series of chain of events books in the If you a ….a…. genre.

In the hands of director Jeremy Skidmore, Adventure Theatre’s If You Give a Moose a Muffin is a charming mashup of Dr. Suess and the original Blue’s Clues.

Young Donald (Parker Drown) is killing time in the living room watching cartoons and playing on his laptop while his mother is busy upstairs yelling instructions about chores downstairs to him and generally being an annoying parental voice. A news interruption announces that moose have migrated from the frozen north to Houston, Texas. Viewers should be on the lookout for moose. No sooner has Donald, the most annoying boy in school, commented that moose don’t live in Houston when the doorbell rings. How come in children’s books the children are never taught to not answer the door when one is alone?

In walks Mr. Moose (Michael Russotto), nattily dressed for business, with a petition for people to be nice to mooses….until Donald corrects his grammar and subjects the lot of us to a lengthy lesson on the proper terms for animal groups. I told you he was the most annoying boy in school. Moose makes himself comfortable and proceeds to foment household chaos around Donald who cannot resist Moose’s entreaties for muffins, toys and anything that strikes his fancy. Meanwhile Donald frets and imagines the troubles he’ll face if mother comes downstairs and sees the unholy mess in her living room. Mother starts coming and a rushed cleanup occurs and the door slams behind Mr. Moose as mother’s shadow appears. Show over.

Drown and Russotto, both accomplished actors, take these roles very seriously and acquit themselves well. The show is very charming for both adults and children. The set was imaginative and clever with enough color and whimsy to please a child and good design to impress an adult and no production values were downgraded or compromised because of the audience.

We are lucky to have such venues as Adventure Theatre as an alternative to electronic games and the Cartoon Network. The children all seemed to have loved this little show and the adults were not complaining either. What a fun idea…go to see the show and then take a whirl on the Carousel and get an Italian ice.