Ottawa International Children’s Festival: Smoothly seductive Wolf captivates children

Figuren Theatre from Germany, featuring puppet master Mathais Kuchta has constructed a little village of cuddly almost life size puppets to tell the story of maman goat, her little goats and the big bad wolf. That Grimm fairy tale we have all heard is told in a very kindly grand fatherly way so as not to alarm the small ones, after all it’s not a nice story. This smooth talking seductive wolf weedles his way into the household while Maman goat is absent and swallows all her babies…all seven of them. We even hear his stomach gurgling as he digests his meal. It all works out but not until some terrible things happen to the wolf  and the billy goats run into the audience and hide among the children, much to their delight.

The performance at times did seem to be a bit too wordy but the round cuddly puppets came to life. the children had a great time and no one seemed frightened by that strange wolf with the huge stomach.

Lots of fun for the very young..around 3 years and up.