Veronica, official daughter-in-law of NewMexiKen, reports:
We took Sofie to see the national tour of Go Diego Go Live! at the Paramount Theater in Oakland. We had great seats, and the theater is gorgeous. Surprisingly, the show was pretty lame and rough around the edges.
First problem, Diego, the star, looked to be about 40 years old. Seriously. The guy was balding, which is fine if you’re a 40 year old guy, but not fine if you are supposed to be portraying A CHILD. Then, there were all the missed sound/lighting cues, which left the actors, after recognizing that whatever was supposed to happen didn’t, saying things like: “Let’s try that again” or “Ok, kids, how about trying that one more time.” Diego and Dora even got stuck in the boat during their river rafting scene — it was not intentional. And then, there was the guy who played “Click, the Camera.” He was wearing a big, boxy camera costume and all you could see was his face, which looked unbelievably miserable. He delivered his lines (“Say Click, Take a Pic”) with about as much enthusiasm as the guy at the checkout line who asks you if you want paper or plastic.
So, as I sat there, and watched the show and picked it apart, I looked over at Sofie. She who was sitting on her daddy’s lap, smiling ear to ear, singing along and bouncing to the beat. That made me really happy. She didn’t even notice all of the stuff that bothered me. And then I thought about how, when you’re Sofie’s age, the dancing camera really is just a dancing camera. All of that “suspension of disbelief” stuff we do to get by as adults, when you’re really young, you just don’t even go there. Pretty soon, though, she’ll see through the dancing camera costume to the guy wearing the costume. And by the time she’s my age, she’ll also start thinking about his whole life (did he study musical theater in school? did he audition for Diego but not get the part? does he secretly hate Diego? does he have a day job? is this his day job? does he perform on cruise ships?), and basically, wondering how is it that he got to the point where he is playing the part of a dancing camera in Go Diego Go. Made me realize that I just need to take a page from my four-year-old’s book: sit back and chill out.
The mamba-dancing coconut trees, however, were pretty awesome.
I remember reading interviews with the puppeteers that do Sesame Street and they acknowledged that when the little kids come to the set they don’t even notice the “man” with the puppet. They just talk to the puppet. Even go so far as to talk to an empty Big Bird suit. I just love that. I wish I could get a little of it back, too.