Joan Marcus
For a summer musical aimed at children and the exhausted parents who have spent the last two months with them, Click Clack Moo (based on a children’s book by Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin) is almost shockingly adult. What starts off as something along the lines of Charlotte’s Web, when three shivering cows use a computer to kindly ask for some blankets, quickly turns into a primer on union strikes.
Not only do Farmer Brown’s cows refuse to give him their prize-winning milk, but they helpfully explain to one another—and the pint-sized audience—what a strike entails. And when Farmer Brown tries to replace milk with eggs as his prized export, the cows and chickens overcome their long-standing feud to picket for better workers’ rights.
Of course, a lot of Click Clack Moo sails right over the children’s heads. At the halfway mark, as cows Maddie (Kristy Cates), Dartlene (Gretchen Bieber) and Loretta (Michael Thomas Holmes) start questioning whether they should continue defying Farmer Brown (Drew McVety), there was a noticeable (and audible) lapse in the audience’s attention. The talented cast—none of whom are above milking easy laughs for the kids—eventually win them back, but there was an awful lot of rustling before they did.
Parents will no doubt be pleasantly surprised to discover that a musical titled Click Clack Moo can keep them interested, too, but a closer look at the program should ease any lingering doubts. With a book from a former writer on Beavis and Butt-head, lyrics from the bookwriter of the long-running Altar Boyz and direction from John Rando, who guided Urinetown and The Toxic Avenger to rave reviews, Click Clack Moo is more than just a summer excursion that will keep the kids—mostly—quiet for 60 minutes. Billy Aronson’s script, with its benign patriarch who turns vengeful when he feels threatened, and the lower-class workers who struggle to find their voice in a struggle for better working conditions, is both kid-friendly and intense, especially Farmer Brown’s stubborn refusal to consider the welfare of his workers and how his granddaughter (Sarah Katherine Gee) feels about them.
For a children’s show, there’s a pleasantly surprising lack “I’m just slumming” on the part of the cast. Even as they milk Saturday-morning-cartoon slapstick for laughs, one never has the feeling that they’re pining to be doing more serious work. That impression was particularly surprising given the caliber of Click Clack Moo’s actors. Several of them have done time on the Great White Way, but all of them are having a ball dressed as cows or chickens (and in DeMond B. Nason’s case, a very sassy duck). Cates and Drew McVety who does double duty as both Farmer Brown and a salt-and-pepper bearded chicken, throw themselves into their roles with everything they have. When an inveterate carnivore like myself roots for the rights of tasty cows, you know a show is good.
Through Aug. 28. Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher St. (betw. Bleecker St. & Hudson Sts.). Tickets are free and available at the box office one hour before curtain.
Not only do Farmer Brown’s cows refuse to give him their prize-winning milk, but they helpfully explain to one another—and the pint-sized audience—what a strike entails. And when Farmer Brown tries to replace milk with eggs as his prized export, the cows and chickens overcome their long-standing feud to picket for better workers’ rights.
Of course, a lot of Click Clack Moo sails right over the children’s heads. At the halfway mark, as cows Maddie (Kristy Cates), Dartlene (Gretchen Bieber) and Loretta (Michael Thomas Holmes) start questioning whether they should continue defying Farmer Brown (Drew McVety), there was a noticeable (and audible) lapse in the audience’s attention. The talented cast—none of whom are above milking easy laughs for the kids—eventually win them back, but there was an awful lot of rustling before they did.
Parents will no doubt be pleasantly surprised to discover that a musical titled Click Clack Moo can keep them interested, too, but a closer look at the program should ease any lingering doubts. With a book from a former writer on Beavis and Butt-head, lyrics from the bookwriter of the long-running Altar Boyz and direction from John Rando, who guided Urinetown and The Toxic Avenger to rave reviews, Click Clack Moo is more than just a summer excursion that will keep the kids—mostly—quiet for 60 minutes. Billy Aronson’s script, with its benign patriarch who turns vengeful when he feels threatened, and the lower-class workers who struggle to find their voice in a struggle for better working conditions, is both kid-friendly and intense, especially Farmer Brown’s stubborn refusal to consider the welfare of his workers and how his granddaughter (Sarah Katherine Gee) feels about them.
For a children’s show, there’s a pleasantly surprising lack “I’m just slumming” on the part of the cast. Even as they milk Saturday-morning-cartoon slapstick for laughs, one never has the feeling that they’re pining to be doing more serious work. That impression was particularly surprising given the caliber of Click Clack Moo’s actors. Several of them have done time on the Great White Way, but all of them are having a ball dressed as cows or chickens (and in DeMond B. Nason’s case, a very sassy duck). Cates and Drew McVety who does double duty as both Farmer Brown and a salt-and-pepper bearded chicken, throw themselves into their roles with everything they have. When an inveterate carnivore like myself roots for the rights of tasty cows, you know a show is good.
Through Aug. 28. Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher St. (betw. Bleecker St. & Hudson Sts.). Tickets are free and available at the box office one hour before curtain.
