Alberta Opera brings Pinocchio to St. A’s

Students at St. Augustine School were in for a treat Feb. 1 and at Crestomere School Feb. 3, as they were not only able to watch, but also participate in the musical Pinocchio, performed by the Alberta Opera.

Music and theatre teacher Angela Meyer booked the play last May on the company’s reputation. Students who were in the play came an hour early to learn their role.

“I think it’s a great experience for kids who would not normally go to theatre,” she said.

Loosely based on The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, there was no Jiminy Cricket as seen in the Disney adaptation. Students followed the story of the wooden puppet Pinocchio who comes to life after his maker, Geppetto wishes for his lost son to be found.

The puppet set off on an adventure to find the lost son but is waylaid by a couple of tricksters who manipulate Pinocchio into eating at one of the most expensive restaurants in town. After some trickery, the two make off with what little money he has and leave the innocent puppet with a large unpaid bill.

Not being able to pay the pecuniary value of the bill, Pinocchio is sent to jail, but is able to escape by squeezing through the bars in the cell.

The first portion sounds rather dark but the storyline includes a happy-go-lucky Pinocchio — who won’t give up in any circumstance — to find Geppetto’s missing son.

The songs and jokes in the play made students and teachers both laugh and kept their attention throughout the story.

Pinocchio does eventually reunite Geppetto with his son and the puppetmaker finds rejuvenation in seeing him, but what made it most interesting was the actors’ ability to effortlessly change into different characters and keep the attendees’ attention.

A memorable scene has Pinocchio in court, not unlike a regular Judge Judy episode. At another point in the story, Squalo, the giant shark of the Mediterranean, swallows the puppet but the actors make use of a rod with cloth-shaped like teeth, instead of an actual shark model or costume. The writers have relied on simple visuals and the viewer’s imagination rather than large and expensive props.

One of the student assistants, Maddie Fleck who was a sea horse, said she liked that the person playing Pinocchio was a female actress. “It was just fun.”

The four actors have graduated from the Theatre Arts program at Grant MacEwan University and will have performed the play more than 300 times when the season is over.

Byron Martin, who played Geppetto and several other memorable characters, enjoyed keeping the attention of students.

“We listen to hear if teachers and Pinocchio entertains students are laughing,” he explained.

Alberta Opera is a theatre company from Edmonton specializing in musicals based on classic literature. The actors perform to students and younger audiences from October to June around Alberta and also performed in Wetaskiwin Feb. 1.