Jack and the Beanstalk wasn't exactly the fairie story of old, but this little opera troupe put together a great little gig for kids in only two days, which I found very impressive. Despite Elle's extreme grumpiness for getting up at an absurd 9am on a Saturday no less, she became quite keen on this "Beanstalk" situation. The organisers wisely called all kids who wished to see up front and three rather long rows of very big eyes took in all the excitement. I thought it was decently comparable in quality to her first puppet show in Angel (London) almost exactly one year ago, which made me very happy. The adults were noisy and paranoid, but then the parental hand to hand combat that nearly ensued in Angel's Li'l Theatre didn't happen either, leaving me with the rather strong belief that parents are generally nuts when it comes to their kids regardless of the cultural, religious, or ethnic background.
Elle's grand contribution was to walk up to the stage steps and point to the Giant's shoes to indicate they were untied. Her rather high levels of OCD behaviour was demonstrated in the most public way possible. She also felt the necessity to go up and sit next to the announcer/organiser who was waiting to go up and close the show. She wasn't annoying though, and that was the huge relief to the rather rigid-backed parents with a stricken look of terror sitting in the middle of the audience. We have discovered that her unabashed lack of fear can cause...problems.
The end of the "mini-opera" was a photo session where the idea was to stand between the princess and the Giant, but it would seem that was not her plan. Cute all the same though, tucked under the arm of rather large baritone where she was not inclined to leave and seemed unclear as to the purpose of the cameras ... which... is a bit of a first since posing for camera's is a favourite pastime for her :)
