Guest Reviewer - Will Miller (7)

I went and saw a play called The Red Tree. It was about the book written by Shaun Tan. The play was about a girl who woke up one morning and had a really bad day and thought lots of really bad thoughts. She got stuck in a cage, then she found a big fish, and then she played a weird game.  She got very sad. But then she started to find red leaves and in her bedroom a red tree. Then she was very happy.

I liked the book because it was like a puzzle in each page because you have to find the red leaf – like on the stage, in each picture there was a red leaf from the red tree. I liked it how the play was done on different parts of a round stage, like different pages of the book.

It was frightening when the lighting struck and I freaked out when the girl was opening the noisy box! But there were funny bits too, like the clowns and when there were funny sounds when she was playing with the dice. The dice was big like in the book. There was no talking in the play except for singing. I thought it was interesting how the fish was made.

So the girl found her way home and she pulled a red leaf out of the wall and then all these sparkling red lights appeared and you could actually see the red tree -  crystal clear. And I wasn’t surprised that the girl couldn’t see the tree at first because she was imagining bad things and she couldn’t really see it.

I thought the girl’s acting was really good, like she really was crying - like she was lost or something. But then she found her hope somewhere, they were the leaves.

But I liked the play better than the book because it was funnier. The play was funny in some bits and the book wasn’t funny. I think the funny bits were put in so that we didn’t feel sad. At the end of the play I felt happy because she got all her hopes and the red tree appeared. I liked the bit when the red tree appeared because it made my heart sing.

Will Miller (7)

Will and Ella on Opening Night