The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon is an unwise attempt to perform all 209 fairytales of the Brothers Grimm in one show. And, just for fun, link all the tales together so they connect into one giant mega super-story. The audience is led through this carefully constructed cluster of stories by two narrators who leave some professionalism to be desired. Despite their constant bickering, venting of personal issues, and baffling disregard for the fourth wall, they somehow form several small scenes into one coherent (albeit shaky) narrative. Assisting the narrators are four incredibly talented and extremely opinionated actors, who play over 30 roles between them over the course of the show. However, these actors have a lot of ideas about their characters, and are very keen to express their interpretation. Narration, direction, and the script often take a backseat to what the actors would like to see happen in their scene. Worse again, whatever the actors change, the narrators have to then work into the giant overarching narrative. The performers initially expect these stories to be the same loveable classics that they_x0019_ ve seen in cartoon musical movies. In actual fact, the original fairy tales are quite different, and some actors accept these changes more willingly than others. Despite the narrators_x0019_ best efforts to keep the stories as close to the originals as possible, the show continually expands to strange new places. Little Red Cap is from the hood and has a gun, the seven dwarves vary in nationality from Irish to Swedish, and Hansel and Gretel are the most stereotypical bogans you_x0019_ ll ever see. Occasionally one of the narrators will help act in a scene while the other narrator takes control of the story, but this only seems to give them more opportunity to irritate and sabotage each other. This show offers the audience many chances to get involved and contribute to the show if they wish, be it providing mass sound effects, chatting with narrators, or actually getting up on the stage. And to ensure that the audience can follow the story, the performers promise that at the end of the night, they will re-perform the entire evening_x0019_ s show, in a 2-minute lightning round recap. With all these personal, professional, and logistical obstacles, not to mention the gravity of the task they_x0019_ ve set out to achieve, can this team of performers pull off this spectacular feat, or is it just fantasy?
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