Phillyist Reviews... Ferdinand the Bull

I was reared on PBS children's programming. Sesame Street. Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Square One TV. But I had a special place in my heart for Reading Rainbow. Some episodes I remember better than others. One such episode being the one in which the featured story was The Story of Ferdinand, about a gentle bull who wanted to stop and smell the roses, rather than fight in the ring. It's this book on which the Arden's production of Ferdinand the Bull is based, so naturally, I was excited for the play.

Although I actually preferred the other kid-friendly production at the Arden this year, The BFG, Ferdinand did not disappoint. It's consistently entertaining, with fun music (by Debbie Wicks LaPuma and lyrics by Karen Zacarias), a gorgeous set, complete with magically-appearing flowers (by Adam Riggar), and a couple of jokes thrown in for the grown-ups in the audience (Cochina the pig, played with great enthusiasm by Maggie Lakis, muses: "I hear George Orwell is here! I wonder if I could convince him to write a book about pigs!"). Joe Coots' Ferdinand is totally endearing (and decidedly human—not a puppet), and Philly theatre veteran Tom Teti turns in a highly amusing Duqué Dodó. Conrad Ricamora plays the young Duquíto Danilo with wide-eyed innocence, but unfortunately, an illness of some sort keeps him from singing at full-strength and makes his performance a little hard to review.

I do have one criticism of the show, and it's kind of a big one: when you're doing a show set in Spain, and you're going to throw several Spanish words into the script, it's very important—essential, even—to bring a language instructor or dialogue coach on board to make sure that you're not butchering the language. I grew up bilingual, so I'm possibly more sensitive to abuses of the language than many others in the audience, but there were some pronunciations onstage that were just embarrassingly wrong. Especially when you consider the very distinctive accents with which Spaniards speak the language. I'm not asking that the cast take Spanish lessons, just that they do a slightly better job at faking the pronunciation.

Of course, if you can see past the accents, you're still in for a fun, and family-friendly, night at the theatre.

Ben Phipps on Guitar and Joe Coots as Ferdinand in Arden Theatre Company’s production of Ferdinand the Bull. Photo by Mark Garvin.