Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Casa Manana's Oliver!









the kids & the Gungans
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This month we have been reading Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist.  It is five hundred plus pages of doom and gloom.   Dickens mocks the hypocrisies of his time by surrounding the novel's serious themes with sarcasm and dark humor.  Today we headed to Fort Worth to see Casa Manana Childrens Theater’s musical adaptation of the novel called Oliver! 
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As always it was very well done.  Casa Manana has the best children’s theater around.  Turning this tragic tale into a musical did lighten up the darkness factor.  Poor Oliver endures hardships, injury, sickness, incredible poverty and cruelty.  Oliver remains pure-hearted; he steers away from evil when those around him give in to it and in proper fairy-tale fashion, he eventually receives his reward. 
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The book is better and far more suspenseful but the play would be a great introduction to Dickens tale and the effects of industrialism on 19th-century England.

I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
you are my God, do not delay.
Psalms 40:17

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