Love You Forever and More Munsch is back with a new cast.Dahlia Katz/Supplied
Eighteen years ago, Young People’s Theatre in Toronto opened Love You Forever and More Munsch, a stage adaptation of Robert Munsch’s most beloved children’s stories (including, yes, that weepy, titular picture book about a mother growing up alongside her baby).
The four-year-olds who might have seen that production are now close to graduating from university; the parents who took them to the theatre might be considering retirement; Munsch himself has announced that he’s close to the end of his life. But just in time for March Break, Love You Forever and More Munsch is back with a new cast – and with newfound relevance for its co-writer and co-director Stephen Colella, YPT’s associate artistic director and literary manager who, since 2008, has had a child of his own.
The Globe and Mail sat down with Colella and Karen Gilodo, Love You Forever and More Munsch’s co-director and YPT’s associate artistic director of learning, for a discussion about Munsch and the mishaps that can accompany staging work for bite-sized audiences.
What was the impetus for reviving this show?
Stephen Colella: We were coming up on YPT’s 60th anniversary, and we thought it might be nice to celebrate our past work, but also to present something that feels current and timely and useful for young audiences. We also did something unusual, in that we brought back the original set design by Robin Fisher – it’s a great set. Why try to reinvent the wheel?
Amy Lee and David Andrew Reid in YPT’s Love You Forever And More Munsch.Dahlia Katz/Supplied
I don’t think a tremendous amount has changed since we last staged it. There was a gag, for instance, where Mortimer’s sister walked in with a very long phone cord, and we realized that kids might not know what that is, so now it’s a cell phone. But any adjustments were really minute – we’re following the spirit of what Munsch does. There’s a timelessness to his work, and we’re trying to be faithful to that.
How do you translate something like a picture book – whose illustrations are likely to be hugely important to your youngest audience members – into a physical medium like theatre?
Karen Gilodo: We want to be truthful to the essence of Munsch’s stories, but not necessarily feel totally beholden by those illustrations. Our dragon looks nothing like the one in The Paper Bag Princess – we wanted our designers to have their own artistic licence in reimagining these stories. Giving a nod to the illustrations was important to us, but we also want this to be its own piece of art, in its own right.
SC: We had a great chat with Rick Wilks, co-founder of Annick Press and Munsch’s first publisher. He underlined that Robert is first and foremost an oral storyteller, and his stories constantly adapt – Robert will find himself in situations where kids tell him he’s telling his stories wrong, because they’ve taken such ownership of the books.
KG: We’ve had several people tell us that the Love You Forever lullaby is 100 per cent wrong. Everybody has their own way of singing it – it’s been quite a funny bit of feedback.
How has Love You Forever and More Munsch been different this time around?
SC: I’m now the father of a four-year-old. When we did it the first time, co-adaptor Sue Miner had a child around that age, and she’d bring her family experience into the process. Now, that’s me – I think, as with any second interaction with your own art, you’re a different person at the time you do it. It felt to me less like the material had changed, but that I had changed, and so had the way I interacted with the material.
YPT does a Q&A after every performance – what sorts of questions have your littlest audience members asked?
KG: On opening night, a kid yelled out, “Mortimer, be quiet” – I mean, you could have put that kid onstage. We want to hear the kids engaging with the show as it’s happening. It’s a great reinforcement that lets us know we’ve got something right.
Megan Murphy and David Andrew Reid in YPT’s Love You Forever And More Munsch, with the original set design by Robin Fisher.Dahlia Katz/Supplied
We start the Q&As with a content-based question about the themes of the play, and then we let the audience share their reactions and questions. And we kill the magic: If they want to know how the bookcase moves, or what it’s like to use the fire pole, or how theatrical smoke works, we tell them.
I love Q&As. They’re really a favourite part of my job.
Last year, Munsch announced that he’s been approved for medically assisted suicide, also known in Canada as MAID. Was the programming of this show linked to that development?
SC: No, that’s an unhappy coincidence. We programmed it a full year in advance of that announcement.
I read his interview with The New York Times, and one of his points really resonated with me: The stories go on. We have to continue to serve the stories, and not become trapped by the sadness of what it may mean to lose someone who’s created so much magic over the years. I think he’d want these stories to remain; that’s been our focus the whole time. The MAID situation came up now and again in the rehearsal process, but we didn’t dwell on it. We just wanted to do justice to what he’s written.
This interview has been edited and condensed.