"Mirette" as a production is a lot of things: a good story, an interesting treatise on developing one's gifts and a novel 1996 show in the Sundance lineup.
Small-children's theater it is not.To benefit from what this production has to offer, minimum age probably ought to be 10.
The themes are adult, the humor is adult and the occasional swear word from the dark and unhappy wire walker Bellini - played by Joe Pitti - is adult.
Small children grow restless. It's too long for them.
And there are more songs than one can comfortably enjoy even as a grown-up. It almost feels as though after one to three lines of dialogue, another song is due.
However, for the right age, this show has some nice things to offer.
Mirette is surprisingly stubborn about chasing her dream even when she runs up against formidable opposition in the character of Bellini.
Played by Emily Hayes/Emily Jane Stewart, Mirette is the indispensable center of the action at a home in Paris. Living in a boarding house full of eccentric performers, she's anxious to find out what her talents are. Her mother, Madame Gateau, played by Jayne Luke, is perfectly happy just to keep her safe with "feet on the ground." Gateau knows something about the hurt one invites by taking risks.
Luke and Pitti end up using the same argument to support their diametrically opposed viewpoints in one of the highlights, "She's not you!"
Mirette not only has to act and sing, she has to walk a high wire with grace and without fear.
Granted, the one she really walks on is only about 18 inches above ground, but still, she plays off Pitti nicely, matching his attempts to discourage her from trying the wire with courage and determination that invite you to like her rather than endure another pushy child.
All of the hotel guests excel in various segments, but overall each could be just a bit more flashy and fun.
The standard at Sundance Children's Theatre has been lots of fun with imaginative costuming and inventive sets.
"Mirette," played against a watercolor modern artsy set, isn't blessed with so much. The set has a couple of clever touches in the cutaway rooms, but the high wire stretched across Paris is obviously out of sync with the feet that are supposed to be balancing upon it. Better to remove the wire and leave the entire sequence to the imagination.
Costuming for Bellini and Mirette in the final scene is colorful, and Bellini is well-dressed throughout with a greatcoat and tie that fit his flamboyant, although isolated, persona.
But the dancer, the juggler, the opera singer and the acrobats "extraor-dinaire" all need more outrageousness. This is vaudeville, right? Comic sequences go above the children's heads. In fact, through an entire performance, not a child chuckled. They just don't see the humor in the ballerina deciding to audition as the "Great God Pan" in leaves and stretch tights or in Pitti's pithy remarks about the wire demanding all one has to give.
It's also difficult to hear some of the vocals, a problem when so much of this show is sung.
This play can be enjoyed. There's something to be said for teaching people about facing their fears and reaching out to others. There are also interesting things to be learned about walking on a wire for a living.
It just isn't Disney.