It was quite a new experience for her, in the concert hall for an actual show - she'd been there before for a rehearsal of a choir performance I was in, but that wasn't when the hall was full of people. and when I say people, I mean 3-to-9-year-olds in various stages of scream. To be fair, most of the kids were pretty well behaved, and most of the adults were too. At one point in the evening, Sophia leaned over to the perfect stranger beside her and asked if she could have some of his popcorn. In another circumstance, I would be terrified for her safety and worried about her manners, but in this case the man was a parent of a child who was almost the same age and also loved the backyardigans, so things were pretty safe, and he was happy to share his popcorn.
The show was well received and quite interesting to Sophia and to Daddy - they took songs from several episodes (for those of you who watch the backyardigans) and stitched them together into a new plot which included a "real" person as well as stagehands in mascot suits. Most of the sound, the music and dialog, was pre-recorded so all the puffy suit people had to do was move along and wave their hands so everyone knew who was speaking. I suppose it was the only way to make it work, though, because the kids would be expecting the voices they remember, and if the show had adults who were dressed kind of like the backyardigans and pretending to be children, it would be a bit creepy...
Anyway, we really liked it. After the show, Sophia was a little quiet, and as we asked her all sorts of probing questions trying to get commentary and opinion, she didn't have much to say. After a few days she talked about it more, but at the time she was more overwhelmed. From time to time she has talked about going to see the backyardigans again and then we have to explain that it's not likely to happen for a while.
We resisted the lure to purchase overpriced stuffed toys and strange LED-light fans with backyardigans stickers on them.
For an idea of what it looks like, click here. It's a different show but you can get the general idea.
No comments:
Post a Comment