By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Don’t dither. Don’t waste time. Who knows really how long an hour is?
In “The Phantom Tollbooth” an hour and a half is long enough to go on a journey to a distant land at war over words or numbers are more important, and where the battle is waged with wordplay and calculations.
“The Phantom Tollbooth,” based on the classic children’s novel by Norton Juster, is being staged by the Horizon Youth Theatre Thursday through Saturday (June 6-8), at 7 p.m. in the Otsego High School auditorium. Tickets are $8 and $6 students and seniors from the website or at the door.
Not surprisingly this advice about time comes from Tock the Watchdog (Scarlet Frishman) who presides over the bedroom of a youngster Milo (Lauren Peppers) who fritters away his time. Then the titular tollbooth is delivered, complete with instructions about how to use it. With the help of his toy car Milo finds himself on the road to the Kingdom of Wisdom, accompanied by Tock.
Here Milo finds himself in the middle of a feud between rival kings —King Azaz (Bob Walters) and the Mathmagician (Thomas Long). They call in their sisters Rhyme (Kate Partlow) and Reason (Chloe Sands). But when the sisters conclude that words and numbers are equally important, the two rulers come to a rare agreement — Rhyme and Reason should be banished to the Castle in the Air.
And once Rhyme or Reason are gone, demons and chaos fill the breech. Those evil ones encourage lassitude and boredom.
Milo is charged with returning the sisters to the kingdom. Along the way, he meets a colorful assortment of characters in what amounts to an American “Alice in Wonderland.”
We have the Spelling Bee (Alice Walters) who is literally a large bee, and her nemesis the pompous, self-aggrandizing Humbug (Annie Valantine). Humbug ends up guiding Tock and Milo on their journey though she seems to have inflated her knowledge of the kingdom’s geography as much as she’s inflated the importance of her family.
Along the way Milo and Tock meet the king’s courtiers (Whitney Bechstein ,Sophi Hachtel, Narnia Rieske, Rose Walters, and Jonah Truman) who proclaim in synonyms.
There’s Dr. Dischord (Bella Truman) and the doctor’s crew The Awful Dynne (Lauren Clifford, Isaac Douglass, Hailey Kozey, Morgan Schober, Aria Weaver, and Calista Wilkins) who concoct all manner of fantastical noises.
In all, the cast involves 56 young actors (http://bgindependentmedia.org/tickets-available-now-for-hyts-the-phantom-tollbooth/), from age 8 through just-graduated high school seniors. That mix of ages adds another dimension to the play. Frishman, who graduated last weekend from the Toledo School from the Arts, displays an appealing maturity as she guides her younger charges along the road to adventure. The climax comes in a swirl of movement during an all-hands-on-stage fight scene.
The script, long a favorite of director Cassie Greenlee, is ideal for a youth troupe — a whip-smart text for whip-smart young actors. And the wordplay will have the adults in the audience laughing.
Given the importance of that witty repartee, the cast’s diction is especially noteworthy.
The usual Horizon energy expended on a clever script adds up to a delightful production. Audiences will find an evening spent with “The Phantom Tollbooth” to be time well spent.
