HOLES

From: "will stackman" profwlll@yahoo.com

Subject: Quicktake - "Holes" by Louis Sachar

Date: Saturday, Oct 28, 6:12 PM

Quicktake on HOLES

     Fans of Louis Sachar's popular juvenile adventure will enjoy seeing such colorful characters as X-Ray, Armpit. ZigZag, and Zero brought to life. Fan’s of the author’s movie adaptation will recognize the script, which is largely a stage adaptation of his screenplay. There in lies some difficulty for those coming to the tale for the first time. The action is fast and furious as it gets the hero, Stanley Yelnats IV, wrongly accused of theft, from juvenile court to Camp Green Lake, a sinister private rehabiltation facility in the desert. The program is to dig a large hole everyday for no apparent reason. Armando-Carlos Gonzalez, seen last year about this time of year in “The Lord of the Flies.” His best friend, Hector Zeroni, aka Zero, is played by Dan Reulbach, also in “...Flies.” The core of the show is fellow WFT students, including Cyrus Akeem Brooks, Nicholas Carter, Shauday Johnson- Jones, David M. Kalm, and Tadesh Inagaki. The adult, mostly Equity cast includes Whitney Avalon as Kissing Kate Barlow, WST regular Shelley Bolman as Mr. Pendanski. Neil Gustafson as Mr.Sir. Monique Nichole McIntyre, style="font-weight:bold;">Ed Peed as the Sheriff, Marina Re as the mysterious Warden, Darius Omar Williams as Onion Sam, and WST General Manager Jane Staab is madame Zeroni, whose curse on Stanley’s pig-stealing great great grandfather just may be the reason for his troubles. Additional grown-ups include tall Kevin Ashworth as nasty Trout Walker, Wheelock grad Chris Burcato as Stanley’s dad (III) and Rydia Q. Vielehr as Zero’s mom. Most double in other small roles as well. It’s a really big show.

     Director Susan Kosoff, WST’s producer keeps the fragmented action moving, but the result isn’t especially dramatic. Sachar’s dilemma in creating this script was to continue an already successful franchise. He might have been advised to let a more skilled playwright adapt his work to make it less linear, to make the melodrama more consistent, getting all the plot elements better foreshadowed in the first half. The result is still engaging most of the time, though Danila Korogodsky’s modernist unit set somewhat overdoes the “hole” motif and doesn’t capture the feeling of the desert very well. It’s still far better family entertainment than the expensive arena shows which blow into the Wang or the Paramount Opera House.

---

"Holes" by Louis Sachar, Oct.27 - November 26

Wheelock Family Theare

200 The Riverway, Boston, (617) 879 - 2300

Wheelock Family Theatre