Introduction
Since this blog is supposed to reflect the whimsical as well
as the literary side of me, I have decided to write first on Seussical the
Musical. It is the most recent show I have attended, and is also my new
favorite musical. As I have only had the opportunity to see the show
itself once, and have been forced to rely on YouTube videos for a refresher, I
apologize in advance for any mistakes I might make on the various plot points,
as well as any inadequacies in my analysis of the various characters. That
being said, let us jump into Seussical!
The Show
I was very fortunate to see the play for the first time,
performed by a group of friends from my old highschool drama class. It
was incredible to see how each of the members had grown as performers in the
three years since I last performed with them. My advantage in watching
this play performed by a group of people that I already knew and respected was
evidenced in the fact that I already had an emotional bond with the actors, an
emotional bond that could easily be played upon in the performance. This
is the primary advantage of highschool and community theater; the audience
already knows the performers and has a rapport with them, a relationship which
enables the actors to be much more themselves in the characters than forcing
them to play a character outside themselves. Thus, I was impressed also
by the particulars of the casting, as each actor brought their own personality
to the character in a way that was both moving and passionate. In preparing
to write on the play, I took the opportunity to watch videos of other
performances of the play, and have noticed that because I do not have the
previous relationship with the performers, that I am much less moved by the
performances, and it requires a much higher level of acting and talent to
elicit an equal emotional response. That being said, while these
renditions of the play do not necessarily connect as well on the emotional
level, I am much more likely to be impressed by the level of skill in the
acting, dancing, and singing of the performers, and able to appreciate the play
on a more intellectual level. This dichotomy between the emotional and
the intellectual appreciation of a performance is one of the most difficult
aspects of live theater as it is very difficult to find the emotional intimacy
of a local production combined with the technical quality of a larger one.
Story and Themes
The story of Seussical combines several of Dr. Seuss' well
loved stories into one larger narrative. The story mainly follows Horton
the Elephant in his endeavors to protect the tiny dust speck on which live the
"Whos," and to protect and care for an egg that was abandoned by its
irresponsible mother. Jojo, the Who is the other main character, a boy
whose outlandish "thinks" tend to get him in trouble. Each of
these characters undergoes their own individual journey of self discovery,
aided by a rich supporting cast of Seussian characters.
While different versions of the play can have a very
different emphasis in regard to the characters, there are several major themes
and a few minor ones that stand out. The opening song, "Oh the
Thinks You Can Think," is a number which both introduces the audience to
the characters of the play and to the primary theme, which is to allow yourself
to imagine, to think outside the box. This theme plays out in the
parallel narratives of Jojo and Horton the Elephant, as both seem prone to
outrageous "thinks," which both get them in trouble and later help
them triumph over the doubts of the characters around them. This theme is
also embodied in the character of the Cat in the Hat, and will be further
discussed in the character analysis section.
A second major theme which is very evident in the dual
protagonists is that of size. The emphasis on making the story "from
the smallest of small... to the largest of all" constantly in evidence;
references to size litter the play, from hyperbolic references to the height of
mountains to the "small but grand" marching band in Whoville.
This constant reference to size serves a dual purpose, it causes the
audience to reflect on the insignificance of themselves in the light of the
rest of the universe, while at the same time drawing attention to the
diminutive details of the world around the audience and hinting that there
might be something very important hidden there. First, the emphasis on
size reminds the audience member of their relative insignificance within the
cosmos. Watching the poor little Who's struggle to survive on their speck
of dust, unable to even comprehend how huge the rest of the world is around
them is eye-opening. The refrain of the difficulties of the Whos,
"drifting through space and cannot steer," will cause the alert
listener a moment of pause as they consider the fact that we are really no
different from the Whos, completely dependent on the movements of natural
bodies and principles and laws of motion of which we have only the vaguest
comprehension. Suddenly, the audience member is nothing more than a tiny
speck in the universe, alone and powerless beside a vastness which he can never
hope to understand. This dramatic emphasis on the miniscule nature of the
individual within the scope of the universe then becomes a building block for
the second result of this theme of size; the importance of the small. The
idea that the smallest voice can make the biggest difference is a theme which
carries over from the original Dr. Seuss book, Horton Hears A Who, into
the play. Jojo is the youngest and smallest character in the play, however,
it is his small voice and small word that saves the entire planet of Who.
Horton the Elephant also comes into his own as a character only when his
focus shifts to the tiny speck of dust on which live the invisible Whos.
It is only by focusing on the little details of life, the pleasure of
imagining or the responsibility of caring for another person that the
characters in Seussical can find happiness and peace.
Characters
The previous discussion of Gertrude McFuzz seems a good
jumping off point for a closer examination of the characters of the play, the
archetypes they represent, and their role in the outline of the play itself.
Horton the Elephant
Horton is nothing less than a hero. Completely
confident in his position from the beginning of the play and unfailingly kind
and honest, Horton is an ideal. While he seems to suffer some doubts or
fears in the face of his opponents (the Sour Kangaroo or the Wickersham
Brothers), he is able to push passed these to defend the small and innocent Whos
on the clover. He is extraordinarily likable and relatable, and can
easily draw the audience into the story as they sympathize with his plight and
see him as an idealized representation of themselves (Everyone has that
internal image of themselves where they do everything right and never make a
mistake). Horton's weakness is also his greatest strength; since he
genuinely cares about the troubles of others, he can be easily manipulated by
those with less honorable motives as is the case with the bird Mayzie.
Gertrude McFuzz
The story of Gertrude McFuzz and her desire to be beautiful
lends itself to an interpretation of openness to people of various sizes, body
types, colors, and appearances, which in turn emphasizes the current
fascination in entertainment with "being yourself." Viewers of
Seussical are encouraged by these themes to embrace themselves as whoever they
are. Change and growth are not the fundamental building blocks of this
play; this is not a bildungs-roman or
coming of age story, instead, it is a story about learning to be yourself.
While in the modern mind, these two concepts seem to have become
intertwined with each other, they are in fact, distinctive, and each encourages
a radically different approach to life and to growth. A more traditional
coming of age story focuses on the development of the characters. As they
encounter a series of tests and trials, the characters are forced to change and
grow, each new trial creating a new aspect of the character's character.
At the end of the story, while the character is recognizable, they have
grown to be a different person from the one who started out on the journey.
This is not the case in many modern movies and plays, and is not the case
with Seussical. The characters in Seussical do not change as they
encounter troubles; Horton is the same elephant at the end of the story as he
is at the beginning, Jojo is the same thinker. Rather, they have come to
accept themselves as who they are, and to force the world around them to accept
them too. While Gertrude McFuzz seems to go through a character
development, the only change that actually happens is in her ability to accept
herself as who she is. She is able to overcome the vanity that is the
fault in her character, but only by setting herself up as her own ideal.
She is perfect just the way she is, the story would have us believe.
While this mindset seems to encourage a good attitude in the viewer (self
esteem and accepting yourself as who you are are very important), it does nothing
to encourage the audience to grow beyond themselves. There is no one out
there in the world who is perfect just the way they are. Everyone has
flaws and troubles that they have to overcome to become a better, more
fulfilled person. The goal of existence cannot simply be to be yourself;
if that were the case, Mayzie would be the hero of Seussical since she is
completely comfortable with who she is and her place in the world.
Instead, one must focus on being the BEST yourself that you can possibly
be. Every day should be a process of smoothing over the rough edges and
working through the flaws so that an individual is constantly becoming a
better, more content person.
Jojo
Jojo is a very unique because of his position both as a
character within the story, but also as an outside audience member. The story begins when Jojo, an ordinary
child, pulls the Cat in the Hat out onto the stage. Through the early part of the story, Jojo and the Cat are
bystanders, watching Horton in his discovery of the dust-speck that holds the
planet of Who and his confrontation with the other animals of the jungle of
Nool. Even when Jojo is himself
incorporated into the story, as the young son of the mayor of who, he still
enjoys a wider view of the events of the play than any other single character,
except maybe the Cat in the Hat himself.
The entire question of the power of Jojo’s position in Seussical can be
summed up in a single line from the song Alone in the Universe, which is
a duet between Jojo and Horton. At
one point in the song, the two characters from different worlds begin to speak
to each other, and Jojo asks Horton, “Are you real, or are you a very large
think?” While Horton readily
assures Jojo that he is real, the audience is still left questioning; is Horton
real, and in what sense? Do the
events of Seussical “really” take place, or are they simply a product of Jojo’s
imaginging from the beginning of the play? The question posed at the end of the play, “What do you think?” implies that, while all these characters may
be real in Jojo’s mind, they do not have existence outside of his
“Thinks.” To some extent then,
Jojo can be viewed as a representation of Dr. Seuss himself, instead of a
character from one of his books.
Jojo is the thinker from whom the whole story of Seussical can
spring. Jojo, by bridging the
world between the audience and the play, as the mastermind, also serves as a
portal through which the audience can enter the story. If Jojo, who is really not so different
from the average audience member, can cross over and enter into the story in
his mind, then we can too, a subtle shift that helps the audience to suspend
their disbelief and actually develop an emotional connection to the characters,
as they are not just in Jojo’s head, but in that of the audience.
The Sour Kangaroo
It might just be me, but I find the redemption of the Sour
Kangaroo at the end of Seussical a bit forced. She spends 95% of the play
mocking Horton for his staunch belief in the Whos on the clover. She
follows him halfway around the world to arrest him, bring him back to the
Jungle of Nool for a trial, and is the star witness against him in that trial.
Then suddenly, one YOPP later, the Sour Kangaroo does an about face and
is looking to protect the clover with Horton. Now I realize that is how
the book went, but COME ON! There is no way that after all that effort not
merely in criticizing Horton, but actively trying to destroy the dust speck and
clover, that she would accept the fact that she was completely wrong and
blissfully go off to protect the clover for the rest of her life. It
almost undercuts the ending of the story, because the audience is left waiting
to see if this is some kind of trick from the Sour Kangaroo to get the clover
so she can destroy it. The girl sitting next to me in the theater at the
performance actually winced when Horton handed the clover over to the Sour
Kangaroo and whispered to herself, "Don't let her take it, don't let her
take it!" It seems to diminish the impact of the "perfect"
ending of the story when the audience is doubtful of the redemption of such a
prominent character.
The Wickersham Brothers
The Wickersham brothers serve as a representation of the
majority of the world; they don’t really think for themselves, they will follow
anyone who is strong enough to command their loyalty, and they tend to look
down on others. Their disdain of
Horton shows a disregard of anyone who does not conform to the societal norm or
to the influence of peer pressure.
They are not necessarily antagonists in the story, but are instead
followers of the cult of the “normal,” misguided and acting according to a
warped perspective. Unfortunately,
most people are like the Wickershams, blindly following whatever a strong
personality tells them is the right way of doing things and pressuring those
outside the circle of normality to conform.
Mayzie
As villains go, Mayzie is remarkably tame, which makes her
unusually easy for the audience to hate.
She is not wicked or evil, power-hungry or ambitious. Mayzie is simply selfish. No one else in the world is an
important as her, at least in her own mind. She doesn’t stop to think how her actions might affect
others, she just does whatever she wants to. Her choice to leave Horton to sit on the egg for her while
she flew of to Palm Beach was not made out of any spiteful or malicious intent
but rather a rejection of the thing in her life that was inconvenient to
her. If Horton had not come to sit
on the egg, Mayzie would probably have left the egg alone to freeze when she
got to bored and tired to handle the responsibility. It was simply fortune that allowed Horton to come along
before that breaking point. This
is what makes Mayzie such a compelling antagonist for the story; everyone knows
someone like that! Every person knows that one person who thinks about
themselves more than anything, who manipulates other to get what he or she
wants, simply because they can. An
audience can identify with Horton as he has to deal with Mayzie because the
audience knows who Mayzie is and have been in Horton’s position before. Even when Mayzie thinks she is being
helpful to others, her actions highlight her selfish thoughtlessness; the way
in which she tells Gertrude how to obtain the pills to make her tail grow is
focused not on who Gertrude is and her problem, but rather on how much cooler
Mayzie is than Gertrude, where she can feel good about herself at the expense
of Gertrude. A similar situation
is seen when Mayzie gives her egg to Horton at the circus. She might justify her actions as being
beneficial to Horton, however, this is simply an excuse for her to carry on
with her current lifestyle without any guilt or regret. In short, Mayzie LaBird is an
infuriating antagonist because she is not an evil villain, but is simply a self
absorbed person who wrecks havoc accidentally.
The Mayor of Who and his Wife
The Mayor and his wife are caught between three conflicting
expectations in their lives.
First, as the mayor states in his opening speech to Jojo, “I have just
been elected, and upright behaviour is thus for expected.” The mayor and his wife are under the
public scrutiny of the entire town, and thus are expected to behave in a
certain manner. This public
expectation is further compounded by their expectations of themselves, to be
good parents to Jojo. When their
son is seen as misbehaving, this reflects poorly upon them as parents, causing
them to cry out in frustration, “who has the instructions on how to raise a
child?” They are futher torn by
their love for their son and their desire to let him grow into the person he is
meant to be, without the stifling of expectations. The pull of these three factors leads them to try to ask
their son to be “normal,” and later to symbolically relinquish their parental
responsibilities by placing Jojo under the authority of General Ghengis Khan
Schmitz. It is only when they are
restored to the role of parent after jojo’s apparent “death” in the
battlefield, can they fulfill their roles properly, both as parents and as an
authority in Whoville. When they
are able to reassume these roles, those under their authority, such as the
citizens of Who, and Jojo in particular, are able to assume their own roles and
identities in order the save their word.
General Ghengis Khan Schmitz
The military subplot involving General Schmitz is sometimes
removed from the story, and it is not difficult to understand why. In the post 9/11 world, expressing an
antimilitary sentiment with a character like General Schmitz and the absurdity
of the bread and butter war is going to be unpopular to say the least. General
Schmitz is more than just a military figure, however. As the head of a military Academy, he is portrayed not only as a soldier, but also as
an educator, an educator who seeks to stifle the independence and intellect of
his students by forcing them to conform to a socially accepted norm. Fortunately for the General, his
character is one of the few in the play who actually seems to evidence growth;
when he is forced to tell Jojo’s parents that their son is presumed dead in
battle, he is also forced to confront his personal role in the boy’s death and
to re-evaluate his position. Since
his military academy is never mentioned, the audience can assume either that
the General himself had a change of heart, or that Jojo’s parents decided not
to send him back. Either way,
there is evidence of a little growth and recognition of the foolishness of the
war.
The Egg/ Elephant Bird
A few quick words on the egg that hatches into an elephant
bird; this character represents a common literary question about human
development, namely that of nature versus nurture. When the egg hatches, it becomes a visual symbol of this
dichotomy. The bird aspect of the
creature represents the nature part of its existence, the genetic
predisposition it inherits from its father and mother. The elephant aspect of the creature,
however, represents the nurture aspect of human development, which can shape
and alter the original nature. The
egg, recognizing that Horton was much more its parent than Mayzie, changed its
physical appearance to reflect that of its adoptive parent. The elephant bird symbolizes perfectly
the profound impact a parent can have on a child, influencing how he or she
will grow up and the kind of person he or she will be. Second, the elephant bird also
highlights the necessity of a two parent family. Horton recognizes this need when he first sees the elephant
bird, commenting to Gertrude McFuzz, “Oh Gertrude, what am I going to do, I am
slow and I am fat. All I know is
the earth, he will need much more than that!” One parent cannot effectively teach a child everything they
need to know about the world, cannot give them a complete education because no
one person is perfect. Everyone
has their own talents and weaknesses, and the joy of a two parent family is
that the parents complement each other in such a way as to make up for the
other’s weaknesses, or as Gertrude McFuzz said, “I have wings, I can fly, you
teach him earth, and I will teach him sky.”
The Cat in the Hat
I must be frank and admit right off that I am in love with
the character of the Cat in the Hat.
He is such an enjoyable, humorous character, with such a unique
perspective on the events of the play.
Like Jojo, the Cat serves as both a member of the audience and a player
in the story, however, while Jojo can be seen as the author, the Cat is the
Narrator. He knows what is going
to happen before it actually does, is familiar with the in and outs of the story,
and always seems to be in control of the story itself. Because of his overarching position as
narrator, the Cat seems to transcend the story itself, to become something
greater than either the story or its creator can be individually. If Jojo is the mind behind the story,
then the Cat in the Hat represents a physical manifestation of the realm of
imagination, or the story itself.
While the author is nominally in charge, sometimes the story runs away,
overwhelming the author and carrying him off places he didn’t intend to go and
getting him in trouble. Thus, the
Cat is seen everywhere in Seussical, popping up wherever a character is needed
to make the story progress or to explain some untold aspect of it. When the story itself seems so out of
control it has descended into madness and darkness, like in the song Havin a
Hunch, the Cat shows up to remind both the audience and Jojo that the story
is a story, and that stories have happy
endings, so that even when things seem dark as they can be, al you have to do
is “think a glimmer of light!” The
Cat is neither good nor evil, neither real nor a “think,” instead, he is
somehow all of these, an extension of Jojo’s position as storyteller and the
story itself, a guide through the twists and turns of Seussical. The Cat in the Hat is more than a
member of the audience, and more than a character in the story, he is the mind
of everyone in the audience, come together, and he is the story.
Conclusion
Seussical is a complex play, filled with powerful themes and
compelling characters who can also be read as powerful symbols. The two major themes are, first, that
of imagination and being willing to use your mind and imagination to overcome
the troubles and obstacles that face each person, while the second that of
size, as it relates to the characters and the audience itself. Each of the individual characters relates
in a different way to these individual themes, and can often have their own
unique symbolic purposes within the scope of the play. Whether you have enjoyed my analysis or
not, I definitely recommend watching Seussical as it is both a compelling and
heart wrenching story.
