When children rule countries
Marie Borgeteien (15 years)
In Bully bully, a world leader is like a 4-year-old who hasn't gotten his way.
"Bully bully" is a play about what a small child and a world leader can have in common, a lot of different music is used to enhance the action in the play, including court music, pop music and folk music, and sound effects to emphasize the comical events. They don't speak much in the play, and what little they did say wasn't in any particular language, so people from all countries can understand the message.
The actors were in character from the first second. They had a good contact with the enthusiastic children sitting in front, I also heard many adults laughing in the auditorium, so I would say that although it is quite clear that the play is aimed at children, I think that all ages can find this a good play. When you get a little older, you can relate more of the things in the play to things that happen in the world. For example, when they brought the flags on stage and started trying to have bigger flags than the other and during the dance they had, the pink king covered the green king's head with his flag. Also at the start when the two kings competed to have the largest statue, reminiscent of countries that compete to have the largest army, and the tallest skyscraper that can point to the forces of capitalism. These are countries that often don't care about the well-being of their citizens, and can be reminiscent of a four-year-old who hasn't gotten his way?
The actors, who I think were supposed to be kings, were enemies from the start, but when the press came on they had to pretend to be friends, it's like that with some countries now, who behind the cameras are really disagreeing, but you see pictures of the leaders of the countries shaking hands, for example during UN or NATO meetings. Or that they want it to look as good as possible from the outside, but have problems on the inside, such as the UAE, where influencers go there to advertise, while the people who live there are treated unfairly. They compared children's arguments to adult world leaders disagreeing, and because they showed it that way, it's a great piece to show to young kids, because it's something they find funny and something they can relate to. So I would say that "Bully Bully" shows a larger societal problem, in a way that children can understand, and I think it's exciting that theater can do that.