The pale green and yellow frogs are back, squatting unblinking on the stage before beginning to hop and jump. So are the huge alligators with their red eyes that glow fiercely in the dark, along with the cat in the enormous bag and the phosphorescent strings. The penguins have returned, too, to play their not entirely sporting but nevertheless funny game of musical chairs.
But along with these old favorites, portrayed by cleverly costumed humans, come some equally delightful new creations in the latest version of “FROGZ,” which is inhabiting the New Victory Theater through May 26. Introduced since the show’s last visit in 2000 are the creations in a vignette titled “Windbags”, which cross an accordion and a caterpillar with a Slinky to provide an eye-catching mixture of sinuousness, sound and slapstick.
Also among this year’s novelties are the vividly colored glow-in-the-dark fish that appear to swim across the stage in graceful schools in “Fish,” The big blue behemoth who literally lose his head in “Oskar,” and the cloudlike billows of heavenly white that rain down in the show’s finale, “Paper.” Intended for audiences 6 and older, this colorful, kinetic 105-minute show (counting intermission), proves itself a sure-fire giggle-inducer.
Created by Carol Triffle and Jerry Mouawad as a production of Imago Theatre in Portland, Ore., “FROGZ” with its acrobatic cast of five in assorted guises, offers a dozen swift vignettes. They are buoyed by a sense of humor, skillful acrobatics, admirable creativity and praiseworthy recall of the sort of high jinks that provide an enjoyable outing for young children, who tend to respond with laughter, applause, awe and intermittent cheers.
With just enough variety, an occasional good-natured excursion into the audience and the kind of occasional menace that not even children take seriously, “FROGZ” know how to entertain. Not often do youngsters in an audience have an opportunity to bat around a hulking creature’s detachable head or watch a very large penguin waddle among them. Nor will the fish in a home aquarium ever seem as fantastically exotic as the ones in “FROGZ.”
Theatre like this opens the eyes to the possibilities of exploration in the vast realm of imagination.