Gentle Stone Soup nourishes young theatergoers
For theater-lovers in central Arkansas, it has been a particularly hard week. The closing of the Arkansas Repertory Theatre — whether ultimately it’s a permanent or temporary action — means the loss of a significant venue and vital player in the arts scene. Putting aside any contingency or rescue plans set in motion, those who care about the performing arts might feel shaken enough to need to run out and hug a theater company.
As it so happens, the Arkansas Arts Center Children’s Theatre opened a production of Stone Soup on Friday night. The Children’s Theatre has spent several decades putting on high-quality, homespun theater for younger audiences and their grateful guardians. Not surprisingly, the current production is no exception.
This Stone Soup adaptation is written and directed by Children’s Theatre Associate Director Keith Smith. Set on a stage framed by drapes with strings of multicolored lights across the top, the tale is narrated by Nonna (a lively and winsome Sharon Combs), and performed in pantomime by a character named Traveler (the rubber-faced and rubber-limbed Charles Roland Bradford) and two white-faced Harlequins called Momus (Margaret Lowry) and Mimus (Madison Stolzer). Lowry and Stolzer are high school students and already adept dancers and performers.
The main point of Stone Soup is how a magic stone can “work its work” and along with more than a little help from a town (the early version of crowdsourcing) feed the hungry Traveler and many more.
One couldn’t help but draw the parallel between how these theater artists used basic theatrics (a slide whistle turning an arm movement into a water well pump, or a bag that holds three performers) to bring delight — as nourishing as anything — to the young minds and hearts in the audience.
The Children’s Theatre earns and deserves that hug.
Stone Soup continues through May 13 at the Arkansas Arts Center Children’s Theatre, 501 E. Ninth St., Little Rock. Showtimes are 7 p.m. Fridays, and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. More information is available at (501) 372-4000.