10/14/2009 11:11:00 AM Man vs. Beast at Children's Theatre
Friends find fun and physicality in SCT’s
Don Darryl Rivera as Mouse and MJ Sieber as Boy in the Seattle Children’s Theatre production of Laura Numeroff’s classic children’s tale, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” opening Thursday, Oct. 15 and playing through Nov. 29 at SCT’s Eve Alvord Theatre. - Chris Bennion
Darryl Rivera (left) and MJ Sieber mouse around outside Seattle Children’s Theatre just before a rehearsal for “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” - Myke Folger
They've been in seven performances together and frankly the chemistry between Don Darryl Rivera and MJ Sieber is starting to show.
Sitting inside the Seattle Children's Theatre (SCT) headquarters, the stars of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie," opening tomorrow, were quick to compliment the one another, agree on the sheer physicality of the show and the wiggle-room it's providing them both to do a little riffing.
"These are very loose scripts,' Sieber said, "There are long stretches with no dialogue."
"Yeah there are a lot of liberties," Rivera added.
And with those liberties come the opportunity to let their personalities and ideas bloom while staying within the scope of the script-an adaptation by Jody Davidson from Laura Numeroff's story of the same title. The story is of boy who lets a hungry mouse into his house resulting in utter, breathtaking chaos.
"We're great friends so it's easy for us to explore a lot of ideas," Rivera said.
"It's a fun dynamic," Sieber chimed.
As the boy, Sieber essentially plays the straight man to the curious and crazy mouse, played by Rivera. Sieber likened it to a sheep dog herding an unwieldy flock of sheep. Rivera is charged with much of the physicality performed throughout the show. He's running around with scrub brushes on his feet. He's climbing through windows scaling a refrigerator and swinging on a trapeze - each of which, he said, are "Costco-sized" props so as to accentuate Rivera's diminutive character. By the end of the hour he's beat. They joked that they both would lose a lot of weight by the end of the show's run.
"This is the most physical show I've ever been in," Rivera said. "It's been a challenge but it's been really great."
Playing Joseph Merrick in the Strawberry Theatre Workshop's production of "The Elephant Man," was by far the hardest, most physical effort for Sieber. (Rivera wrote the score for it). Sieber had studied diagrams of Merrick's severely disfigured body, the misshapen head, the lame leg and the S-shaped spine. But the play called for the title role to use neither prosthetics nor make-up. So he had to deliver the character by imbuing the attributes and letting the imagination of the audience go to work.
"I spent two hours on stage being horribly contorted and that was really hard," he said. There were times that, locked in Merrick's position, Sieber's back would begin to bother him, but he didn't break character. Instead, he let that irritation play out into the character, as perhaps some of pain Merrick endured daily. "When you do something that physical," Sieber added, "everything feeds into it."
As Boy and Mouse, Sieber and Rivera (both handpicked by casting for the parts) also let the characters seep into them - particularly because the costumes are minimal. Sieber wears a typical boy's summer wear, and Rivera wears overalls and a gray stocking cap with ears sewn on. As the audience begins to accept the oversized kitchen set, the hope is that it will begin to see Sieber as a boy and Rivera, in particular, as a mouse, too.
Sieber felt that by not putting Rivera in a mouse costume, kids watching the show would better relate to his character. Rivera has played a Munchkin and a flying monkey in "Wizard of Oz" and Lowly the Worm in "Busytown" and each time imagination superceded the need for mask, makeup or prosthetic.
"It might be aesthetics," Rivera figured.
When Sieber finishes his role in this performance, he'll begin work on "Glengarry Glen Ross," which opens in February at the Bagley Wright Theatre. Next spring, Rivera will play in SCT's version of the Grimm brothers' tale "The Brementown Musicians."
"I play a donkey, so I'm moving up the food chain," Rivera laughed.
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie plays at SCT's Eve Alvord Theatre. at 201 Thomas Street, Oct. 15 through Nov. 29. Tickets are $15 to $34. Call 206-441-3322 or visit www.sct.org.
