Mummenschanz

Today is was the last day of school for two weeks: we've made it to our fall vacation, without a single line of homework among us. Tomorrow we're leaving for our week's vacation across Germany, where it's cold and is supposed to rain interminably. Into the suitcases with the sweatshirts and rain coats.

But after we got our chores done, Ella and I got to have a wonderful treat tonight.

If you watched the Muppet Show, you may remember a particular episode, aired in the 70s, featuring a Swiss mime troupe, Mummenschanz. ("Mummery," in German.)  I vividly remember curling up on my Grandparents' floor, watching that episode after one of my Grandma's amazing brisket dinners. Fascinating and creepy, those characters stuck with me.

Mummenschanz is celebrating forty years together with an anniversary tour, and I bought tickets for Ella and me, for the Zürich leg.  I would have liked to take Alex, too, but the rest of their performances will be while we're out of town, and I the 8:00 PM performance was too far past his bedtime.

He would have loved it, too: after I bought the tickets, the kids and I huddled around the computer and I showed them everything youtube had to offer about the troupe, and of the three, Alex loved it best.  Their work really is appealing for kids: they specialize in oversized costumes that exaggerate or substitute unusual things for body parts: the Muppet Show was the perfect venue for them.

Ella was excited simply by the thought of getting to go out with Mommy.  She was so cute, getting dressed up in her warmest fancy clothes, but putting sweatpants on under her sweater dress ("Sometimes warmth is more important than fashion," she informed me) to go out into the cold, drizzly night.  And she chirped and laughed with me for the entire half-hour bus ride, about what the show would be like, about some picture books she wanted to draw for Joey, about school.


Ella was impressed with the theater, ("This is the fanciest place I've ever been to!") and was on the edge of her red-velvet seat for the first half of the performance. Because this was an anniversary performance, the troupe performed all of their oldies-but-goodies, including the skit that I saw on the Muppet Show all those years ago.  So Ella was familiar with almost everything she saw, and I think that made it a lot of fun for her.

I had to laugh with the spotlight shone on this character, and I heard Ella's little voice next to me: "Oh, it's the one that looks like poop!"

I couldn't help being impressed by how agile and playful the performers, still, after all this time.  When they took off their masks at the end, they were all grey hair...and enormous, grateful smiles.  The crowd brought them back for a half-dozen curtain calls.

Most of the show was done with very little lighting, and as the show went on, Ella sank further and further back into her seat, almost asleep by the end of each of the two acts. She revived a little during intermission, when we went to the gift counter to buy a DVD and a toy for Alex, but no amount of lifesavers and cold drinks of water could keep her awake for the end of the show.

But that was no refection on her attitude toward the performers: two thumbs up.