Time Out May 3, 2007
Theatre Review
Preschoolers aren't big on plotlines, which might be one of the reasons P.D. Eastman's Go, Dog. Go! has been a perennial favorite for generations of early readers since it was first published in 1961. It's simple, it's funny, and the drawings are bold and bright—what more do little kids need?
That same simplicity transfers to the stage in Chicago Children's Theatre's musical adaptation of the book, played out pretty much verbatim inside a carnivalesque big-top tent in Grant Park. Jim Lasko's cartoonish set provides a perfect backdrop for the high-energy cast to play out silly slapstick routines that make kids (and some adults) in the audience guffaw. Rhythmic STOMP-style musical routines give the story an extra kick .
But a roughly 500-word story spread over an hour and a half (plus one 15-minute intermission) can feel a little thin at times to older theatergoers. The best moments are when musical director Jonathan Mastro's peppy score picks up and fills the gap between the sparse dialogue. You feel a yearning for the dynamic energy to keep flowing, but it repeatedly dies down.
Still, the target audience is what matters here. If my own four-year-old son—who left the tent singing the finale's lyrics (and continued singing the entire trip home)—is any indicator, CCT is creating a legion of little fans with this production, and a generation of young Chicagoans who'll have an affinity for theater before they know what hit them.— Judy Sutton Taylor