Children’s Festival shows range from gripping and solid to saggy

AND THEN … HE ATE ME

Velo Theatre, France “It’s fear that made us invent houses,” we are told by a wolf near the outset of this demanding and rewarding play for 10-yearolds and up. And at the end, that same wolf warns us, “I am mixed in the cement of your house.”

Between those two points, three exceptional performers — Charlot Lemoine, Tania Castaing and José Lopez — weave fairy tales, bits of Alice in Wonderland and classical music into a gripping show about defiance, risk, and uncertainty in the face of both life and death.

The play is subtitled “a criminal story,” and in a way it is, with the wolf the criminal. But, as we discover, that ravenous wolf is within us — and what exactly are you supposed to do when gleaming teeth are part of yourself ?

“Be brave. Go out of your houses,” we’re told at one point. And really, short of barricading ourselves like so many little pigs (yes, their story gets a nod too), that is about all we can do. Mi Casa Theatre, Ottawa

Wolves are again in the spotlight here as Emily Pearlman and Nicolas Di Gaetano take on the roles of two “educators” who are going to train us, the audience, to shed our wolfish ways and become human. The goal: a “peaceful and civilized” existence.

Of course it’s a fruitless exercise — nature, whether lupine or human, being what it is. Regardless, Friday’s audience (the show is intended for those age eight and up) was only too happy to join in when asked — and when not asked — by singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat, enjoying the performers’ excursions into absurdity, and chortling at the spoofs of self-important teachers and the crushing hand of authority.

Mi Casa Theatre has given us some fine shows, including its benchmark Countries Shaped Like Stars. Wolf Child is not in that league. Overacted and frequently saggy, it feels unfinished. One also senses that Pearlman and Di Gaetano were not prepared for a sometimes too-engaged young audience.

JACK AND THE BEAN

Presentation House Theatre, Vancouver

A cross-dressing worm, a goofy giant, a young man who learns the value of belief and magic, and a participation-ready crowd help make this spin on Jack and the Beanstalk a dandy show for the three-plus crowd. An all-in dance at the end is a good workout, too.

Tim Carlson plays Jack. Kim Selody is his farmer dad, the giant, that eyeglasses-wearing worm and others characters.

As the giant, he gives an ecology lesson that has the audience pretending to be bugs that keep soil fertile.

Lots of activity, dollops of silliness, a good story simply told: it’s solid theatre for the very young.