When the magician pulls the rabbit out of his hat, no one thinks about the rabbit. It’s the magician who basks in the gloried applause. After all, he pulls a rabbit out of an empty hat.
Therein lies the problem.
Who is this rabbit? Isn’t he part of the magic? Or is he, after all, the magic itself?
The collaborative Buntportians, along with Adam Stone composer and lyricist, decided it was about time to seek out the rabbit and oh what a surprise they let themselves in for. The result is Jugged Rabbit Stew, the musical playing at Buntport through June 19. Charming, delightful, poignant, thoughtful Jugged Rabbit Stew is couched with humorous entanglements of the serious and even with just one-week left, should not be missed because of its electrifying creativity.
Discovering Snowball, eagerly and delightfully played by Erik Edborg, although there is no sign of Edborg anywhere to be found, there is a magic rabbit that has had it with the hat trick. After all, who gets the credit and glory? Not Snowball. It’s Alec the Amazing and All-Powerful, deliciously played by Evan Weissman.
Schlepping around in pajamas, robe, and bunny slippers, Snowball falls into a deep depression. Eating only mashed potatoes, wanting to be left alone to watch home movies over and over again.
Mystical Marla loves Snowball, and begs him to return to the magic show. Hannah Duggan takes on Mystical Marla with good reason. Magical as Snowball is, sometimes he doesn’t always complete his eye-popping stunts. In sawing off her legs during the last show, he re-connected Marla with a pair of man’s legs. Having trouble controlling them, they don’t always do what Marla wants them do.
All Alec ever wanted to do was to be a magic man. He wanted to be appreciated and loved. Nothing worked, until he found Snowball in a cage by a dumpster. The magic belonged to Snowball, and Alec ate it up knowing full well, deep inside, he “needed someone to complete him”.
Alec and Marla would do anything for Snowball, they’d become whatever he wanted them to become, and they’d be whatever he wanted them to be.
Snowball could care less.
Not only did he connect Marla with the wrong legs, he made Alec disappear. In the reappearance Alec was missing his right arm, which independently appeared on its own. Dressed in black from head to foot except for his right arm, Brian Colonna plays The Arm with delectability. It’s The Arm, dressed in red that is seen, heard and paid attention to. Unbelievable as it sounds, the Arm richly becomes a character all to its own. You hear him, see him, believe him, and, oh, the arm has much to say.
In his cock-eyed upside world of confused Fate, Snowball takes great delight in collecting objects and hanging them from the ceiling. And he does this because? That’s what Marla wants to know. Why?
The latest acquisition just happens to be a woman in a rocking chair. Alec’s biggest Fan, she attended many of the magic shows. For a while she even gave Snowball hope. Something went sour, and she ended up hanging from his ceiling.
Erin Rollman stuns the senses with her professionalism, sitting in a rocking chair, hung by cables for the entire show, Gaa Gaa over Alec, finding a wondrous sense of love with The Arm, playing a bright-eyed simplistic little girl in a woman’s body awed by the magic of an insolent broken hearted rabbit and a starry-eyed magic-less magician competing for attention from The Arm.
Buntport’s enchanted imaginative world draws in the audience with exquisitely defined characters expertly brought to life by imaginative, definitive artists.
As Marla presses Snowball for the why of the collection, this encased world explores questions of love, defining identity, fate verses destiny verses choosing one’s own path, and what happens to the self when a person wishes to become whatever anyone else wants them to become. And what happens when someone who has no magic, but hungers for it, steals the magic in one’s life for credit? Intriguing how this make believe world coincides with today’s society.
Jugged Rabbit Stew is simply a brilliant piece of work that amuses, tugs at the heartstrings, and with clever lyrics points the thought process into bold directions.
With his grouchy, self-annihilating, depressed self, one still wants to reach out and hug the rabbit. He, who hates to be petted since a little girl who just wanted to love him, petted him once too often.
Snowball can’t forget his mother and father. In a clever piece with rabbit marionettes he finds himself singing with them, Oh father you look so free. Oh mother, am I what you thought I’d be? His mother responds, My son, there is no limit to how great you’ll become. By now the magic seems meaningless to Snowball, and he begins to see his fate float toward a less desired direction.
Jugged Rabbit Stew features the talents of Steven J. Burge, GerRee Hinshaw, Andrew Horwitz, Clarity McKay, and off stage SamAnTha Schmitz. Gypsy Ames deserves credit for co-creating Snowball’s mask. After Snowball’s disappointing ride to glory, far be it from me to ignore credit when credit is due.
A fun game for Jugged Rabbit Stew exists on Buntport.com. The CD is available for purchase for $10.00 at Buntport, and it’s worth every dime.
There’s only one weekend remaining in the run of this brilliant production. They have been playing to sold- out houses. No surprise here. Buntport’s Jugged Rabbit Stew provides a refreshing, humorous, poignant slice of life in a wondrous make-believe world that will not want to go away. It makes sense. Think twice the next time you want to hug a bunny once too many times. Magic gets thrown away all too often just because it isn’t recognized for what it is.
-Holly Bartges, June 15, 2010 , Colorado BackStage