BWW Reviews: CHOOSE YOUR OWN… Features the Vision and Voice of Jamie Maletz

The Choose Your Own Adventure series for children ~ stories calling on the reader to make choices for the characters at critical turning points in a plot ~ is a nifty concept on which to base a musical entertainment, and the multi-talented Jamie Elizabeth Maletz has taken an inspired, if not fully refined, stab at such a challenge with the staging of CHOOSE YOUR OWN... for which she has also written the book, music, and lyrics.

In this two-acter, an ensemble of actors ~ cutely named Leading Man, Ingénue, Comic Relief, Outcast, Bad Guy, and Narrator ~ has been trapped in space and in time, in the confines of a black box theater, by an unseen but ubiquitous Puppet Master, who challenges them to act out the plots of his creation. At every turn, there are knaves and monsters to be fought. It is to the audience that the Narrator invariably turns for decisions about which path the characters should take. The question is whether audience input will provide the keys to escape from the kidnapper's clutches.

The seeds of meaningful allegory reside in this script and are most poignantly revealed by Maletz's songs. The script may be a work-in-progress, awaiting the cleansing of some of its shticks and verbiage, but the music and lyrics are definitely the work of a future star.

More importantly, the songs have an inescapable relevance to issues of self-respect and identity. Take, for example, this simple but elegant phrase: "The bottom line of fear is/Will I get out of here/and know myself?" It rather captures the thread that binds the allegory. It reminds as well that we all are responsible for the answer to this question and to the solutions that free us from the puppet master's entrapment. And Ms. Maletz is driving the point home.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ... ran for three performances at the Peoria Center for the Performing Arts from March 6th to 8th. I, for one, look forward to her return and the further development of Ms. Maletz's work.

Photo credit to Ilana Maletz & Natalie Maletz