Review: "Seussical" (Midland Community Theater)
Category: Local...
Posted Sunday, December 03, 2006 at 08:52 PM [GMT-6]

Thanks to our friends Mike and Vickie and their willingness to share their 2006 season tickets to Midland Community Theater, we attended MCT's presentation of Seussical, the musical production which debuted on Broadway in 2000 and which is based on the works of Theodor Seuss Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss.

We had not seen any other versions of Seussical and so we entered the theater with no preconceived notions. What we experienced was an entertaining production by a large and uniformly talented cast of local amateur performers, including a few standouts that bear further attention. These included:

• Cody Tumlin as The Cat In The Hat. Cody is a staple at MCT productions, and for good reason. He's an extremely versatile and gifted performer, and the many incarnations of TCITH gave him free reign to show off that versatility. (I hope he'll take it as a compliment that he sometimes reminds me of Jack Black.)


• Jena Tumlin as Mayzie La Bird. Cody's wife is also a gifted comedienne (they're both members of The Venue, a local improv group), and some of their scenes together got the biggest laughs of the night.


• Seussical is a musical, and we were amazed by the vocal talents of the folks portraying Horton the Elephant, Jojo (the son of the mayor of Whoville -- you are keeping up with all of this, aren't you?), and Horton's next door neighbor and the victim of a bad case of inter-species infatuation, Gertrude McFuzz (she's a bird, you know). Regrettably, since I have a poor memory and strong ethics, I didn't steal a playbill and I can't remember the names of the folks who played the first two characters. The fellow portraying Horton (I do remember that he works for Teraco) reminded me strongly of Rick Moranis in the movie version Little Shop of Horrors, and the young boy who played Jojo had as pure a voice as I've heard in a long time.


• But I do remember well the young lady who portrayed Gertrude McFuzz. Her name is Jenna Thomas and she happens to be the daughter-in-law of some good friends in Midland. Jenna is a new face at MCT, but I can assure you that she'll become well-known to theater-goers in Midland before too long. Besides having a wonderful singing voice, she displayed some impressive acting skill in the character of a sometimes-downtrodden, sometimes-bold heroine-in-the-making.

This production of Seussical wasn't without its puzzlements. I'm not sure why they decided that Horton would appear in the guise of a nerd straight out of Napoleon Dynamite, when every other main character bore at least some cosmetic resemblance to their Dr. Seuss book incarnations. And a couple of the musical numbers dragged on a bit (not the performers fault). But, overall, the music was fun, the performances top-notch, and the time was well spent. (Not lost on me was the fact that the five young children sitting to my left were mesmerized throughout the duration of the show, which should give you an idea of the quality of the production.)

Of course, this review isn't likely to be of much use; I understand that all the performances are sold out, although you might be able to get a seat in place of a no-show if you don't mind flying stand-by, so to speak. I primarily wanted to point out the notable performances of the local talent, the overwhelming presence of which continues to amaze me year after year.