Play Review and Evaluation for The Fabulous Fable Factory by Joseph Robinette essays

Play Review and Evaluation for The Fabulous Fable Factory by Joseph Robinette essays "The Fabulous Fable Factory" by Joseph Robinette is a work of what is commonly known as children's theater.' An individual unfamiliar with this genre of theater might simply assume a work of children's theater to be a dumbed down' version of adult theater. This might be particularly the case in terms of "The Fabulous Fable Factory," when such an individual heard that the narrative of the play was one in which Aesop's fables were retold in a modern context. However, the use of a fable-like structure for this work of children's theater is actually a brilliant, creative, and strikingly interactive choice of a plot. Fables by their very nature are interactive tales, where the reader, or in this case, the audience member, is asked to become part of the story of the tale, passing judgment upon the actions of the character and engaging in an active learning process. This interactive process is truly what is at the heart of children's theater. The acting of the play is extremely presentational. Rather than attempting to embody the character in a Method' sense, the actors present their stock characters in a very self-conscious way, asking the audience to pass judgment upon them. The play is set in an abandoned factory where the factory's machinery, an assembly line of different individuals, come to life to enact fabulous fables. The set design of the factory is also not realistic, but encourages the audience to use its collective imagination to create a factory environment, and to invest importance in the stories told, and the fictional conceit that there can be such a thing as a factory of stories. Thus the set design supports the direction of the actors, the acting, and the narrative of the story. But the striking things about witnessing this play, as typical of children's theater in general, is the way the audience is encouraged, not to sit in silence, but to beco...