On Thursday June 20th (Forest cast) and Friday June 21st (Ocean cast), the Station Theater’s production of This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing by Finegan Kruckemeyer opened to full audiences. The play is billed as appropriate for children, ages five to 90, and this holds true. It’s theater with children, both on stage as actors and in the audience, but not “children’s theater.” The production runs through Sunday, June 30th.
The play has a familiar fairytale beginning: three young sisters are left in a forest by their woodcutter father and forced to make their own way in the world. Remarkably, the conflict begins not only with a dead mother and an “evil” stepmother—who changes remarkably quickly after she comes into their lives—but also when their father does not stand up for his daughters and disappears. (Disney, take note.) From this fairytale beginning, the three sisters make three resolutions: one sister walks one way to find purpose, one walks another to find adventure, and the third stays right where she is in the forest to create a new home.
Fairytale tropes are tropes for a reason, but these have healthy doses of emotional complexity, of irony without poisoning, and of self-awareness without losing the childlike purity that makes them so good. These qualities make the play’s magical realism that much easier to believe, its moments of Python-esque humor quirky and loveable, and the commentary whimsical instead of moralistic—as some fairytales and fables can be. A lighthouse becomes a submarine pulled out to sea by a million sea creatures; one traveler has a supply of cherry pits to plant in threes that never seems to run dry; woodland creatures show remarkable awareness of the subtleties of human relationships. Mr. Badger, for example, in spite of his irritation at his brother’s being eaten one cold winter, proves to be a remarkable wingman.
The sets for the play have made remarkable use of the Station’s limited space. The scenery is painted on the floor—a river, a bridge, green grass—in addition to forest wall murals, moveable scenery pieces, and a lighthouse that converts into a submarine complete with propeller. Kruckemeyer has captured a lot of childlike glee in the script as well, but with young performers it really comes to life. He also doesn’t shy away from difficulty. One character starts out eating woodland creatures, but later becomes a vegetarian after realizing what harm eating her fellow creatures is doing; one comes to her wits’ end when she cannot put aside her own needs for others anymore and shouts at everyone to get out of her house (relatable); one saves a village from a horde of Vikings; one brings light and excitement to a dull city with a cry of “Hello, boring people!” only to realize that she would like life to slow down a bit.
The play has a cast of twenty-three, and works particularly well with a case of mixed younger and more experienced actors. The three main characters, Albienne, Carmen, and Beatrix, are each represented by three actors: a “younger” version (played by a young actor), an “older” version, and a narrator. The three narrators have moments of acting on their own and together as a kind of Greek chorus, which adds a nice touch to the storytelling. There are moments in the play that feel as much like zen parables as fairy tales or fables. “He was remembering how to be in love,” says one narrator of a man piloting a boat, “and forgot how to lower the mast.” It’s not about distraction, which might imply fault; he was remembering something important, and therefore forgot something else that was important. It could happen to anyone.
I found the characters’ “plot armor” (i.e., an assurance that a main character won’t die before the end) particularly enjoyable. I was more interested in seeing the three young girls grow and discover themselves than I was in seeing them survive intense trials á la Game of Thrones. In this way the play is very cozy—not without lessons or growth, but with no sudden dark turns.
By the end of the play, the three sisters have returned home to continue life with each other. A happy ending, no doubt, and one where all the characters arrive in a place that they seem to have been destined for all along. For three sisters, born triplets, who began life so alike, they grew to be as “unlike each other as ostriches, ice cream, and illegal fireworks.” Throughout their adventures they have grown up but not apart, each following what she imagines to be her life’s purpose until it brings her back home again.
This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing
Station Theatre
223 N Broadway
Urbana
Th June 27 7:30 p.m. $17-$30
June 28 to 30: Sold Out (join waitlist)