Throughout childhood we believe in magic and fairy tales, until these illusions are shattered along with the knowledge of many harsh realities of the “real world.”
Senior Chelsea Krause’s original comedy production of “Storybook Asylum” twists audience sentiment of fairy tale characters, placing favorites such as Goldie Locks, Peter Pan and Belle as patients in a mental asylum.
The production was originally pulled together as a 45-minute show for the university’s High School Day through Alpha Psi Omega, a national honorary theatre society. However, they decided to include a showing for students last Thursday evening in Pottle Recital Hall.
The characters have mental illnesses such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, madness and beastiality, and have been in the asylum for an average of five years. Dr. Frankenstein, played by Tiray Dove, poses as the new doctor.  He proceeds to counsel patients until the climax of the play when the audience realizes he’s actually a newly-admitted patient.
With four weeks for auditions, casting, designs and rehearsals, I thought they took a creative idea and did a fantastic job bringing it to life. The actors thoroughly engaged and entertained the audience throughout with a string of successfully comedic scenes.
I was especially impressed with the actors’ use of blocking and props. The performers had excellent stage presence, with excessively loud and silly movements. With a minimalist setup of a table, two chairs, paper and pencils on flat stage space, every inch of stage and every prop was effectively used in character expression.
At one point Dr. Frankenstein decides to help Goldie Locks confront and conquer her need for order by flinging papers through the air, knocking over a chair and letting his lab coat slouch over his shoulder. Being a self-proclaimed neat freak, I found this scene especially hilarious as Goldie Locks starts shaking and losing control in her need to make everything “just right.”
Though the ideas were creative and entertaining, I feel further development of the plot and characters would be necessary for a broad-scale production. A typical play diagram includes the introduction, rising action, climax, falling action and the denouement. While the play had a great start-up, the big moment when we discover the doctor is a fraud was a bit anticlimactic, especially for the established dramatic style. The across-the-board static characters proved another weakness, stunting plot growth.
Additionally, some attendants were offended by the negative implications of using mental illness as the butt of every joke. In moving forward, Krause might consider reworking some of the comedic sequences to make fun of different scenario aspects.
Despite the need for further development, the performance accomplished its primary purpose: to entertain. The group accomplished this goal in under a month with a lacking budget. The characters held my attention, and I found the performance genuinely funny. Congratulations to everyone involved in the show. I’m looking forward to seeing the next production.