If you could give a child a message, an idea you wanted them to keep and believe in all their lives, what would it be? How would you tell this child so that the message would stick forever? Put it in a story. Make it rhyme. Set it to music. It will stick. Just ask the advertising industry. I think I've said that before. Oh yeah, the other way to make something stick is repetition. Stories stick, rhymes stick, music sticks. They all stick especially well in children. What would you tell the child? I would like to tell a child to be who God wants him to be. Be truly himself. I would like to tell a child to pay attention to the world around him; notice things and never lose his imagination or wonder at God's creation. I would like to tell a child to stand up for what's important, defend the weak, especially people; people are important. You know where this is going don't you? There is a musical that has a great story, rhymes all the way through and is about 75% music. AND hidden in this rhyming musical story, is a message about being yourself, using your imagination, standing up for what's right, defending the weak and valuing people.
What's good for a child is good for an adult. An adult might walk away from this show with the same messages as a child, but on a deeper level. That is, if the adult pays attention and is humble enough to be taught a lesson by an elephant, a bird, a little boy and a cat.... in a hat.
At the opening of this show there is bare stage in the middle of which sits a solitary hat. You know the one: it's tall and has red and white stripes. A boy walks on and starts to imagine things about the hat. He imagines the Cat and suddenly the Cat appears. Throughout the show, this boy and the cat imagine things and they come into being. It all comes out of that marvelous hat. The stage quickly fills with color and characters and music.
I'm really bad at summarizing plots. I am hoping you have all read Dr. Seuss books. They pretty much mixed all the best stories together and put them to music.
Project playlist has it's limits and so if you want to hear the Seusical music (which I've had here before) you have to scroll all the way down, hit pause on the regular player, then scroll all the way up and hit play on this little player
here--->
That's all they have at Radio Blog so that kind of gives you a taste. I wish I could find a few of my favorites. As much as I love the Cat, I really prefer everyone else's songs.
There are basically three stories interweaving in Seussical The Musical.
The main one, around which all the others hang is about Horton the elephant. There are two parts to Horton's story; first of all Horton hears the voices of people too tiny to see. He promises to protect a tiny planet called Who that looks like a spec of dust. No one believes that there is anyone living on it but him.
The second plot is about the boy who lives on the small planet of Who that Horton is protecting. His name is Jojo and he has an over active imagination. He has too many "thinks." His parents and the whole community think of this as a serious problem and they send him off to military school to keep him from 'thinking.'
Thirdly, there is a bird named Gertrude who is irresistibly attracted to Horton's big heart. She thinks she's too plain to be noticed and spends much of the show trying to impress him by changing her appearance.
And of course, there is the cat. He shows up in each story and guides it along, making things more complicated or saving the day by turns.
Horton is the heart and soul of this show. His faithfulness and determination and most of all his humility make him very reachable as a hero. There are things that Horton believes in and these are so important to him that he is willing to face the scorn and ridicule of his peers and go through all sorts of terrible things. How many of us would do that? His belief in the sanctity of life is so strong that nothing will deter him from protecting these small people that called for his help. Over and over he sings quietly, in his simple way 'a person's a person, no matter how small." That settles it for Horton. Let them all laugh. He has promised to protect a tiny planet full of people only he can hear. Nothing will shake his resolve and his faith.
Horton's pretty solid, but that doesn't mean it's not hard for him. He hits a low point in the show after he has been guarding the Whos for some time. The other citizens of the Jungle of Nool and their mockery are starting to get to him. He has to find something to get him through it. He observes that the other jungle animals lack a gift of hearing and noticing. It makes him even more lonely to know that no one else notices all the wonderful things he can see and hear. But this gift is also his comfort; he has wings that can raise him up and out of reach of the base nastiness of his neighbors.
As Horton is singing about this bittersweet loneliness, on the tiny planet of Who, Jojo is also singing. Jojo is at Military school where he'll "sweat and shiver and eat raw liver" in an attempt to make him like every other Who boy; practical, neat, clean and, ultimately, unimaginative.
"Nobody knows that I have wings, yes, I can fly
around the moon and far beyond the sky.
And someday soon I know there you'll be...
One small voice in the universe,
One true friend in the universe
Who believes in me."
In real life, God sometimes puts people in your life that feel like family (in a good way) after you've known them for a matter of moments. It's one of those miracles that happen two or three times in a lifetime and make you feel that perhaps the world is not such a bad place. In a musical, that sort of miracle happens when two characters, who haven't met, are singing the same song in two different places. It's a pretty good way of describing it actually: Suddenly you hear someone singing the harmony to your song. Horton hears Jojo singing and they become friends between the second verse and the final refrain. The song is called Alone in the Universe and it's one of my favorites. I love friendship duets.
Meanwhile in an other part of the jungle... well, next door actually, Gertrude McFuzz is frustrated cause she's been singing along with Horton for weeks and he hasn't noticed. She is attracted to Horton's compassion and determination and wants to help and support him but their neighbors keep drowning her out. She not very loud, in fact she kind of shy and plain. She is a bird with only one feather in her tail. Her friend Mayzie has a flashy fabulous tail and everyone notices her. So Gertrude, at Mayzie's advice, goes to a doctor and demands special pills to make her tail grow. Does this sound familiar? How many women do this sort of thing. Somehow we think that we are not good enough just the way God made us. We change the way we look or dress or act. We think that these superficial things will keep us from being wall flowers. We all want to be noticed or somehow affirmed. Gertrude obviously doesn't want the kind of attention that Mayzie gets but she thinks that's the only way. So she gets herself a big colorful tail.
Does Horton Notice? He's got too many other things on his mind to care about birds with giant tails.
Some of Horton's neighbors, a trio of monkeys called the Wickersham brothers, steal the clover on which the planet Who is resting. They lead Horton on a desperate chase across the jungle. The clover gets dropped in a field full of clovers where, they are sure, Horton will never be able to find it. Horton is crushed but he just takes a deep breath and starts picking clover, one at a time and searching for his Whos.
Also determined, Gertrude follows with her tail to get Horton's attention. All her parading brings no results at all. Horton is too busy listening to one clover and then an other. He's not real interested in big tails anyway. He's an elephant after all. Gertrude keeps taking pills, her tail doesn't even fit on the stage anymore, but Horton won't notice her.
As Horton is out in the field someone else is feeling hopeless; Mayzie. She's bored. Now, for a children's show, this is a bit borderline: Mayzie is stuck on a nest cause he boy friend left her with an egg. Yeah. *cough* Remember Mayzie is the most popular bird in the Jungle of Nool because she is fabulous and beautiful and shows off her big colorful tail. Now, look where all that attention has gotten her. She has no idea what love is. Sacrifice is the language of love andMayzie doesn't speak it. She is just looking for the next thrill, the next joyride. Her last joyride leaves her on a nest with an egg that is demanding her care and attention. It demands sacrifice. It demands love. All she wants to do it get out of it. PoorMayzie will never experience the lasting joy that comes from giving yourself to someone, for real. She whines to Horton about how unfair life is. He sympathizes. She asks him to take care of the egg for a while so she can have a short vacation.
She'll be right back.
Really.
Horton is so sweet, he knows what it's like to have a responsibility that seems too heavy. Horton's self esteem is really lot at this point. He feels like a failure because he lots the Whos. He needs to prove, to himself if no one else, that he is dependable and capable of defending the weak like he promised. He agrees to take care of one more helpless little person. It is obvious to us that Mayzie isn't going to come back any time soon but Horton keeps hopping in her. He promised to take care of the egg and even if she doesn't keep faith with him, it doesn't matter; "an elephant's faithful, 100%". Why would he do that? He has no special love for Mayzie. Why would he sacrifice for her like that? It's that hope and conviction in him that keeps hims sitting on the egg for months. He may realize that Mayzie is not coming back, or he may not, it doesn't matter. The egg needs him now. Helpless people need to be protected and as far as Horton is concerned, the egg is also a person.
The main problem is that sitting on the egg keeps him from searching for the Whos. When rain and storms come Horton is terribly torn between searching for and protecting the Whos, thereby letting the egg frieze or staying with the egg and hopping the Whos will be alright. He ends up sitting miserably on the egg and worrying.
An elephant sitting on an egg is so ridiculous that when some hunters come through the jungle they decide to capture Horton and sell him to a circus. Horton calls desperately for help and Gertrude hears him and comes to his aid. Unfortunately her tail is so long and heavy that she can't really... fly.... at all. Just when he needed her most and he would have been sure to notice her, Gertrude utterly fail him. All because she had tried to get his by superficiality. What good is a big beautiful tail if you can't help the person you love when he needs you?
It's too late, Horton is taken far across the ocean, egg nest and tree.
End Act One
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