Rapunzel by SRT {Giveaway}

We started our weekend with Rapunzel, the latest production by The Little Company, a division of the Singapore Repertory Theatre (SRT), and that turned out to be a great decision because we had a very entertaining time.

Rapunzel is a story that I found rather fascinating as a child, because I could not imagine anyone having hair that long that it could be used as a rope to climb a tower. And It's clear that my daughter has been struck with the same fascination. "Why is her hair so long?" she asked me repeatedly while staring at the cover of the programme for the play. I don't think she was very satisfied with my answer that it had been grown and not cut so that it could be used as a means to climb the tower! Wait till she starts wondering how the witch got Rapunzel up in the tower in the first place... 

She stared at the cover for a long time! 

I knew this story was going to be a little different when we walked in to the theatre and didn't see any tower. Instead, we were presented with a desert scene with a giant cactus! That tickled my son a great deal, and he was even more amused when the top portion opened up later to reveal Rapunzel, looking out from the top of her creatively-disguised prison, desperately reading books to discover a way to break the witch's spell and escape.

Rapunzel looking out from the top of her cactus tower.

What followed was mostly a classic re-telling of the story, with a few creative, modern, and even local touches thrown in. Rapunzel is aided by her animal friends Harriet the Roadrunner and Hugo the Armadillo as they seek to break the spell that has held Rapunzel captive in her cactus-tower all these years. The witch is introduced as an award-winning chef, who wins cooking competitions with her dishes of chicken rice and chilli crab, thanks to her "secret ingredient", which is also the reason why she has imprisoned Rapunzel for so long. A prince (of course we had to have one!) later wanders into the desert with his trusty camel, discovers Rapunzel in atop the giant cactus, and they become friends. He then helps her to collect the ingredients that she needs to break the spell and plays a part in helping to bring the story to a happy conclusion.

The witch Esme taking an important phone call on her bicycle with everything.

Harriet and Hugo, with Prince Montague as he brings back one of the precious ingredients for Rapunzel to break the spell. 

There is much to commend in this production, from the tight scripting to good use of puppetry, but what made the show for me were the songs. Well-written and catchy, they were ably brought to life by the cast. I found them playing in my head days after. Even now! I also liked that they tried to involve the audience by teaching us to sing one of the songs, with actions, to help Rapunzel remember the three ingredients she needed for her, well, spell-breaking spell. You could see all the children and parents in the audience relishing the opportunity to follow along!

Honey from the buzzing bee, bee, bee...

I had actually brought the children to this staging of Rapunzel because I thought Meips would enjoy it. I guess I had it categorised as a girly show in my mind. But I realised that was a wrong assumption on my part. To my delight, Noey enjoyed it a lot too. He held his breath when the witch made her appearance, chuckled along loudly to Prince Montague' appearance, and bounced nervously in his seat when the witch discovered the prince had been visiting Rapunzel. Credit for this goes to the engaging story and the creative dialogue and songs in this production, which drew the audience in, boys and girls alike.

Both children enjoyed the story, though my worried little girl didn't like the witch much, and at one point when Rapunzel started crying, Meips let out a wail too. (I laughed. Evil Mummy.) Thankfully she was quickly calmed by jumping into Daddy's arms. She's since forgotten about her own whimpering and carried programme around with her the entire weekend, telling everyone who would listen to her that she'd watched Rapunzel. It certainly made an impression!

What told me this was a good production was that my husband enjoyed it too. Usually the unwilling party when I bundle the whole family off to the latest show, he agreed with me that the show was good and the fact that I later caught him humming a tune to himself sealed the deal.

Rapunzel is definitely fun for the whole family -- don't miss it!

Don't miss Prince Montague and his highly amusing camel Chester in this production!

Rapunzel is playing at the DBS Arts Centre - Home of SRT from 14 March to 30 April 2014, with shows at 11am and 2pm on Saturdays, Sundays and Public Holidays, and at 10am on Tuesdays to Fridays, with selected additional shows at 2pm. Tickets are priced at $35 and $32, and can be purchased from Sistic.

GIVEAWAY!

Good news for all readers of this blog: I have 2 PAIRS OF TICKETS to Rapunzel to give away! Each pair of tickets would entitle you to catch Rapunzel on Saturday 19 April at 11am. To enter, simply follow the steps in the Rafflecopter widget below. The more steps you complete, the higher your chance of winning!

a Rafflecopter giveaway  

Contest ends on Friday 11 April 2014, 11.59pm and is open to Singapore residents only.

*We received complimentary tickets to the show for the purpose of this review, and the giveaway tickets as well as the production photographs used in this post are courtesy of SRT. All opinions are, as always, strictly my own.