Theater review: Children’s Theatre Company’s ‘Drawing Lessons’ a touching tale of art’s ability to heal
Among the great advances in education over recent decades is the rejection of a “one size fits all” approach to learning. Different brains process information differently, and there are skills that come more easily to some while others struggle to attain them.
This is a problem that 12-year-old Kate is encountering in “Drawing Lessons,” a new play by Michi Barall that opened this weekend in Children’s Theatre Company’s intimate street-level space. Kate would rather doodle in her textbooks than read them, and a teacher’s insistence that she give oral presentations paralyzes her with terror.
Today, most middle school educators would recognize that Kate has anxiety issues and be sympathetic to the fact that she lost her mother to cancer five years earlier. But it’s 1995 and there’s still some “one size fits all” approach among her teachers.
Yet Kate finds hope in an unexpected place: A neighborhood art supplies store is owned by a relatively successful cartoonist, and Kate comes out of her shell enough to ask him to teach her to draw. “Drawing Lessons” is the story of how two people feeling defeated by life find inspiration in one another.
It’s a simple story, but a very powerful one, and the CTC production — under the direction of Jack Tamburri — has an endearingly lived-in feel, the conversations flowing at an unhurried, natural pace and the action enhanced by projections of what Kate and her mentor, Paul, are drawing, the cartoons sometimes produced live on stage, courtesy of overhead cameras above their desks.
It’s a story of how a child finds a new dimension to her life by reducing things to two dimensions or gains a new perspective by learning how to convey perspective in a picture. And, thanks to some very solid performances, it feels like a refreshingly honest portrayal of what it’s like to be 12 years old and feeling like you don’t fit in.
Added to Kate’s issues with words vs. visuals is some culture clash. Her parents came to the U.S. from South Korea, and her father sometimes seems as rigid about the shape her studies should take as the history teacher who Kate views as a vicious nemesis, one who presumes that Kate doesn’t speak English at home, when she actually speaks nothing but. Yet she’s clearly not alone in this struggle, as her closest friends are Somali and Hmong and each feels pressured by family to succeed.
Two young actors share the role of Kate over the course of the show’s run, and it’s quite an emotionally demanding role. On opening night, Olivia Lampert (who splits performances with Mars Niemi) brilliantly conveyed the conflict bubbling up from inside this frustrated artist trying to find her voice. And Jim Lichtscheidl is totally believable as the cartoonist thrust into the role of reluctant art teacher, a non-parent unversed in the tricky dance of discipline and encouragement.
A positive influence arrives in Katie Bradley’s convincingly layered Gomo, an aunt who comes to visit and turns into an important cog in Kate’s support network. Would that playwright Barall lent more dimension to Kate’s unyielding villain of a history teacher, but that feels like a nitpick in what is otherwise a finely crafted play.
‘Drawing Lessons’
When: Through Nov. 10
Where: Children’s Theatre Company, 2400 Third Ave. S., Mpls.
Tickets: $63-$15, available at 612-874-0400 or childrenstheatre.org
Capsule: A touching tale of how creativity can draw people out of their darkest times.
Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.
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Theater review: Children’s Theatre Company’s ‘Drawing Lessons’ a touching tale of art’s ability to heal
Among the great advances in education over recent decades is the rejection of a “one size fits all” approach to learning. Different brains process information differently, and there are skills that come more easily to some while others struggle to attain them.
This is a problem that 12-year-old Kate is encountering in “Drawing Lessons,” a new play by Michi Barall that opened this weekend in Children’s Theatre Company’s intimate street-level space. Kate would rather doodle in her textbooks than read them, and a teacher’s insistence that she give oral presentations paralyzes her with terror.
Today, most middle school educators would recognize that Kate has anxiety issues and be sympathetic to the fact that she lost her mother to cancer five years earlier. But it’s 1995 and there’s still some “one size fits all” approach among her teachers.
Yet Kate finds hope in an unexpected place: A neighborhood art supplies store is owned by a relatively successful cartoonist, and Kate comes out of her shell enough to ask him to teach her to draw. “Drawing Lessons” is the story of how two people feeling defeated by life find inspiration in one another.
It’s a simple story, but a very powerful one, and the CTC production — under the direction of Jack Tamburri — has an endearingly lived-in feel, the conversations flowing at an unhurried, natural pace and the action enhanced by projections of what Kate and her mentor, Paul, are drawing, the cartoons sometimes produced live on stage, courtesy of overhead cameras above their desks.
It’s a story of how a child finds a new dimension to her life by reducing things to two dimensions or gains a new perspective by learning how to convey perspective in a picture. And, thanks to some very solid performances, it feels like a refreshingly honest portrayal of what it’s like to be 12 years old and feeling like you don’t fit in.
Added to Kate’s issues with words vs. visuals is some culture clash. Her parents came to the U.S. from South Korea, and her father sometimes seems as rigid about the shape her studies should take as the history teacher who Kate views as a vicious nemesis, one who presumes that Kate doesn’t speak English at home, when she actually speaks nothing but. Yet she’s clearly not alone in this struggle, as her closest friends are Somali and Hmong and each feels pressured by family to succeed.
Two young actors share the role of Kate over the course of the show’s run, and it’s quite an emotionally demanding role. On opening night, Olivia Lampert (who splits performances with Mars Niemi) brilliantly conveyed the conflict bubbling up from inside this frustrated artist trying to find her voice. And Jim Lichtscheidl is totally believable as the cartoonist thrust into the role of reluctant art teacher, a non-parent unversed in the tricky dance of discipline and encouragement.
A positive influence arrives in Katie Bradley’s convincingly layered Gomo, an aunt who comes to visit and turns into an important cog in Kate’s support network. Would that playwright Barall lent more dimension to Kate’s unyielding villain of a history teacher, but that feels like a nitpick in what is otherwise a finely crafted play.
‘Drawing Lessons’
When: Through Nov. 10
Where: Children’s Theatre Company, 2400 Third Ave. S., Mpls.
Tickets: $63-$15, available at 612-874-0400 or childrenstheatre.org
Capsule: A touching tale of how creativity can draw people out of their darkest times.
Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.
Related Articles
Theater review: St. Paul’s Park Square Theatre returns with expertly executed ‘Holmes/Poirot’
Review: The songs, not the story, are the draw for the Temptations musical ‘Ain’t Too Proud’
Theater Latte Da brings the inventive ‘Scotland, PA’ to local stage
Theater review: ‘Behind the Sun’ sheds light on local history of housing discrimination
Review: Guthrie Theater’s ambitious ‘Lehman Trilogy’ ultimately misses the mark
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