Thursday March 28, 2024
THE 13 STOREY TREEHOUSE
Review

THE 13 STOREY TREEHOUSE

December 30 2013

THE 13 STOREY TREEHOUSE, A CDP production at the Playhouse Theatre, Sydney Opera House, triumphant return season from 28 December 2013-25 January 2014. Photos: Luke Joslin, Sarah Woods and Mark Owen-Taylor.

By JAMES DAYHEW (8) with FELICITY DAYHEW (10).

You have to use your imagination because the Treehouse looks like a garage with an arch made of wood and one leaf. The awesome book by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton has been transformed into an even better play with two actors who are being Andy and Terry (Luke Joslin and Mark Owen-Taylor). You know it's not Andy and Terry because if you've met them you know they don't look like the actors.

Andy and Terry come to the stage thinking they're having a dress rehearsal but the stage manager who is actually an actor called Sarah Woods says "why weren't you at rehearsals last week?" And they realise they've made a terrible mistake. She asks them for the script and they say "We don't have one!" Which is all part of the play, so they give her the book and ask her to read bits for them. She doesn't want to but they trick her by telling her that Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe were supposed to play the parts but had sore throats. So she is quite pleased and she says she will.

Terry paints the neighbour's cat yellow and it turns into a cat-nary and flies off. They need to do other things for the story, like an invasion of monkeys, have a mermaid and a sea monster. The stage manager brings on a machine that the Opera House has, it's called a 2D-3D Converter machine and it turns pieces of paper into real things.

THE 13 STOREY TREEHOUSE

The part where the TV fake dog Barky the Barking Dog is killed by the Gorilla might scare little kids but mainly it's just really funny. Barky is annoying anyway. The stage manager is the Sea Monster and she's devious, evil yet very clever and she's Terry's wife. This is a good joke. Richard Tulloch wrote the play and he did it really well, because it would be impossible to actually get the 13 Storey Treehouse on the stage but you can imagine it.

Kids and families will enjoy this show because it's funny and ridiculous and we liked it a lot and so did DiDi.

 

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