The Selfish Giant

Today we went to see The Selfish Giant at BYU.  We had excellent seats, third row back right in the middle.  The production was wonderful, with lots of kids, a fun set, and a great story narrated by an ogre, but a very friendly one.  The children were enchanted, paid attention the whole time, and really liked it.  Even Blythe, who normally says to me halfway through, "When do we get to go home?" watched the whole thing without asking even once.  There was a very sweet message to the play, a message about sharing, about caring for others, about the joy that can come to us as we look outside ourselves, and about the power of Christ's atonement to make us better people.

The giant was a large puppet with six different people working body parts and another person voicing.  They did a fantastic job of bring it to life, giving it expression and depth and wholeness even though they were each manipulating separate parts.  We were able to get a picture with the giant after the show, but Brandt, of course, wanted nothing to do with it.  He is very uncomfortable with people in costumes or creations that look like something real but aren't.  This is not to say he didn't love it, because he did, he just didn't want to get too close.

These four characters are Frost, Snow, Hail, and North Wind.

They are cold and evil.

Tall and exciting too!

 

Blythe, me, and the Giant with his puppeteers.

A peek behind to see how the puppeteers work the giant.

Each arm, each leg, the body and the head have an individual manipulating the puppet.

Super cool!