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glenviewlantern.com life & arts
the glenview lantern | April 26, 2018 | 27
It’s all fun and games until someone pricks her finger
‘Sleeping Beauty’
meets slapstick
humor in GBS
spring play
Chris Pullam, Editor
Glenbrook South students (left to right) Annabelle Fogel (Shorwinda), Natalie Kahan (Torwinda) and MariaElena
Kouriabalis (Morwinda) rehearse Glenbrook South’s spring play, “Sleeping Beauty,” on Thursday, April 19, at the
school. Photos by Chris Pullam/22nd Century Media
Sleeping Beauty, meet
Sleeping Betty. Brothers
Grimm, meet Glenbrook
South theater.
Nowadays, the title
“Sleeping Beauty” most
likely elicits grainy images
from the iconic 1959 Disney
animated film, adapted
from the tales published
by French author Charles
Perrault in 1697 and the
Brothers Grimm in the
19th century, but the earliest
known version of
the story appears in the
anonymous prose romance
“Perceforest,” a strikingly
darker tale composed
sometime between 1330
and 1344.
During South’s spring
play, however, the Titans
went the other way entirely,
serving up a heavy dose
of slap-stick humor and
downright silliness.
“When most people
think of ‘Sleeping Beauty,’
they probably think of an
elegant play where the
princess falls in love, but
ours is so funny and so random,”
said senior Miracle
Josaiah, who played Sleeping
Beatrice, referred to as
Sleeping Betty throughout
the performance by the
evil fairy Griselda. “It was
a great chance to make the
audience laugh and have
fun doing things we can’t
usually do, like performing
the chicken dance live
on stage.”
The Titans performed
the play in front of family,
friends and theater-lovers
at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday,
April 20 and 21, in
the GBS auditorium. But
first, at 10 a.m. on Friday,
April 20, they faced their
toughest audience to date:
nearly 1,000 students,
grades K-3, from Henking,
Willowbrook and Pleasant
Ridge elementary schools.
“We thought a more comedic
version would be
more enjoyable for that
demographic,” said Director
John Knight. “[Also],
there’s a lot of magic and
fairies in ‘Sleeping Beauty,’
which is much easier to
portray in an animated cartoon
than on the stage, so
we decided to embrace the
inherent goofiness of fairies
and flying and wings
and accept those limitations
and use them to our
advantage.”
The play’s silliness was
evident right from the beginning,
when Griselda
interrupted the Storyteller
from recounting a more
traditional version of the
play with a curse of silence.
The evil fairy then
gave her take on the classic
tale, claiming Sleeping
Beauty was really named
Sleeping Betty and that no
one really like her anyway.
Knight and his cast
made a point of engaging
their young audience
throughout each performance.
At multiple points
in the story, characters
emerged from the crowd,
chased each other through
the auditorium or performed
the chicken dance
in the aisles.
And on two separate
occasions, the three good
fairies pulled a member of
the audience onto the stage
to help with a problematic
situation, going so far as to
claim that one of the kids
was actually a fairy attempting
to blend in with
the students for some unexplained
reason.
According to Knight,
the play was an opportunity
to hook Glenview’s
next generation of actors
on theater, but it was also
a chance to engage the
adult audience in a different
way.
“I strive to bring that element
of comedy as much
as possible in childrens
plays,” he said. “And any
good, enjoyable childrens
play has to offer something
for the adults, as well, because
they’re the ones
dragging their kids to the
theater in the first place.
Whether it’s ‘Bugs Bunny’
cartoons or ‘Shrek,’
most of these things that
appeal to young kids also
have other things they
don’t pick up on — maybe
Cast
• Storyteller — Hannah
Glaser
• Griselda — Lauren
Bundy
• Froggy — Alejandro
Alvarado
• Penelope — Kendall
Grenolds
• Wallace — Sam Kim
• Morwinda —
MariaElena Kouriabalis
• Torwinda — Natalie
Kahan
• Shorwinda —
Annabelle Fogel
• Princess Beatrice —
Miracle Josaiah
• Prince Frederick —
Davis Rowe
something more subtle or
a tricky word play or reference
that kids miss but
adults will enjoy.”
Sam Kim, as Wallace, and Kendall Grenolds, as
Penelope, perform the chicken dance.
For Josaiah, the play
was an opportunity to add
to her theatrical portfolio.
The senior, who performs
with the choir and
appeared in this year’s v-
show, played a bugbear in
South’s production of “She
Kills Monsters” two years
ago, but this was the first
time she starred in a lead
role at GBS.
“It’s really different,”
she said. “I just wanted to
have some fun, so I tried
out. I didn’t know what
part I would get, but it was
really cool to have a lead
role and to have lines and
to interact with other characters
and experience a
different level of acting.”