Rumpelstiltskin got a makeover in Against the Wall Theatre’s production of Calfskit at the Stettler Public Library on Saturday, April 12.
“We wanted to do something for kids. There are a couple of people who have kids within the cast, so to do something that’s a little bit more community-based or family friendly, we wanted to explore that avenue too,” said Amy Wood, who played the miller’s daughter.
Children and parents gathered in the new area designated for programming at the library to see the comedy troupe perform their own take on the old fairy tale, with a twist – the actors incorporated the audience reaction into the story, presenting a unique narrative.
The story starts with two guards explaining that they have to collect taxes from the townspeople – the children in the audience, who then had to give the guards their “gold:” wrappers from their gold and silver chocolate coins. This is the first of many moments of audience participation.
“It’s kind of funny because some of the parents are like ‘Shh!’ and we’re like, “No, it’s great, it’s fine.” We’ll use that. That’s kind of the point, to use whatever they are giving us, and we’ll try to incorporate that into the story,” Wood said.
The story is familiar: the miller and his daughter can’t afford to pay their taxes, so the guards have to bring them in to the corrupt king, who has a French accent for reasons unknown.
Just like in the story, the miller says his daughter can spin straw into gold, and the king challenges her to spin a roomful of straw into gold before the sun comes up. Rumpelstiltskin offers to do it for her if she offers him three things valuable to her.
When the miller’s daughter went to spin the straw, the prop spinning wheel suddenly malfunctioned, and Wood had to improvise for a few minutes until Rumpelstiltskin’s actor could help repair it.
Wood said that the cast knows in advance what the scenes will be, and most of the dialogue and some of the plot points are improvised, depending on how the children react.
“With this story, the main choice that the kids had was, is the king going to be good or evil? Because that affects how each of the scenes afterwards would go,” Wood said.
In this case, the king was evil.
And while in the original story, Rumpelstiltskin was unfriendly, Calfskit’s version is helpful and does magic tricks – like making a ball disappear from his hand.
“I know where you putted it!” one child shouted from the back.
“Where did I putted it?” the show’s Rumpelstiltskin quickly shot back.
The show wasn’t all for kids though – there was plenty of humour that adults would appreciate as well.
The two guards are named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (and in fact, end up referencing “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”), and the king gallops everywhere while knocking two halves of a coconut together.
“Shrek is the one that comes to mind that has a lot of adult humour in there too,” Wood said. “That was kind of a tough thing in rehearsals, trying to get that line.”
Judging from the amount of audience participation and the laughter from the adults in attendance, Calfskit succeeded.