‘The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi’
When:
7:30 p.m. Friday, April 9
Where: Fitton Center for Creative Arts, 101 S. Monument Ave. Hamilton.
Cost: Adults: $15 members, $17 nonmembers. Children (to age 16): $7 for members, $8 for nonmembers.
HAMILTON — A mongoose will go cobra-hunting this week at the Fitton Center.
The hunt will take place via the play “The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi,” which will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 9, as part of the center’s Fitton Family Fridays series.
The play is performed by Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park through its Off the Hill touring company. This is a loose adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic children’s tale “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” which also was adapted into an animated film in 1975 by Looney Tunes director Chuck Jones.
In the version playing at Fitton, Darzee, the diva tailor bird, is incensed when Rikki Tikki Tavi, a young mongoose, washes up in her pristine garden. Darzee and her friend, Chuchu the muskrat, try to run off the mongoose until they realize that Nag, the cobra who terrorizes the garden, fears the mongoose.
“The play is pretty sophisticated, but it can be enjoyed by kids,” said Mark Lutwak, the educational director for Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. “It’s been reinvented as a comic free-for-all.”
The actors don’t appear in full animal costume, but in getups that suggest the animals. For example, Rikki Tikki Tavi wears a big, fuzzy tail and the cobra wears a veil, Lutwak said.
“When Rikki comes, his presence helps them all work together,” he said.
This performance is recommended for adults and children ages 5 and older.
Included in the ticket price is a pre-performance reception of kid-friendly drinks and appetizers at 6:30 p.m.
For more information or to order tickets, call (513) 863-8873 ext. 110.
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2836 or erobinette@coxohio.com.
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