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BLOOMSBURG — Frank Murphy is under a table when he accidentally jabs himself with the screwdriver he was using to scrape chewing gum. Ouch. Now he’s bleeding.
“This is my boss,” a character named Shake tells the audience at the Alvina Krause Theatre. “You’re probably seeing him at his worst.”
But that little mishap is not the worst thing that will happen to Frank Murphy and a bunch of other people during the “Birthday Showdown at Penguin Pete’s Pizza Emporium.” Not by a long shot.
As the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble’s family-friendly summer show continues through Aug. 3 you’ll see Penguin Pete — actually, it’s Shake dressed as a penguin — pulling himself across the floor, exhausted, after a girl with a cattle prod has forced him to give numerous piggyback rides. A costume that forces him to waddle didn’t make the task any easier.
But, maybe another character, Jesse, has it worse, being tied to a chair and all.
Or maybe it’s worse for Natalie, compelled against her better judgment to keep refilling a punch glass.
Or maybe the chaotic situation at Penguin Pete’s — a business that, incidentally, is facing foreclosure — is worst of all for the four grown-ups who are trapped in the colorful ball pit in the corner.
“Grown-ups should be seen and not heard,” says Penelope, a young tyrant whose birthday party quickly morphs into a hostile takeover of a place once well known for “hot pizza, rockin’ tunes and a lot of video games.”
Why would a little girl want to cause so much trouble? Shouldn’t she just be happy with pizza, a big bag of tokens, a doting mom, and the six friends who brought presents for her?
“She’s evil,” 9-year-old Irene Combs-Cannaday said, describing the character she plays. “And bratty. And snobby.”
“In real life I usually try to be nice to people,” she said, admitting it’s fun to portray someone with a more devilish mindset.
“Her studious, sweet self melts away,” director Richie Cannaday said, describing how the young actor adapts to the role.
Ensemble member Cannaday wrote the play and is Irene’s real-life dad, but said he didn’t pen the script intending for her to have a leading role.
“She auditioned with everyone else,” he said. “If she had any kind of leg up, it might have been that she heard parts of the plot as bed-time stories.”
Cannaday has pleasant memories of eating pizza and playing arcade games when he was growing up and he arranged for the character Shake to express “the voice of nostalgia” for places like Penguin Pete’s.
Penelope, meanwhile, is the voice of a bully, used to getting her own way, not caring whom she alienates.
It’s fun to watch her get her comeuppance, and equally fun to watch the three figures in an animatronic band — a bear, a walrus, and of course, a penguin — play music and, when necessary, talk.
“They’re real animatronics,” Cannaday said, describing how ropes, rigging and a foot pedal worked by stage manager A’nie Kirchner make them move.
After a matinee earlier this week, some young audience members said they wouldn’t want to be friends with someone like Penelope.
“Too greedy,” 9-year-old Logan Monroe, of Hamburg, explained.
But his little group of six friends and cousins liked the performance so much they wanted cast members to autograph their programs.
“It was funny,” 7-year-old Maya Woodland, of Elysburg, said. “And a little scary.”
