This was a rough watch. As a whole, it was kind of nonsensical. Firstly, the premise was too ambitious for what ended up on stage; I understood the messages it was trying to send, but none of them landed effectively. The dialogue felt cliche and a few of the conversations felt word for word from a standard blockbuster. Characters were like dolls being moved in and out of scenes for no logical reason except to be convenient for the plot, which was sometimes so abrupt that audience members actually laughed out loud.

Most notably, the transitions were so so strange. They would take 30 seconds or longer, where only 2 techs seemed to be moving props offstage, which meant they had to keep coming back to the stage multiple times within one transition to take everything away. Not sure why actors weren't just taking pieces with them as they exited. Even better, some transitions would be complete, but the actors would sit in darkness for another 20 seconds waiting for the music to end and the lights to come back up.

The performances left a lot of room for improvement. One actor would smile during serious scenes for some reason?

I got distracted by the styrofoam bricks squeaking on the ground and the goofy tree dismantling. Some pieces of the set had a certain painted/sketchy style for no discernible reason, as that style disappeared after one scene. Otherwise, the set obviously had a lot of work put into it and I commend them for that.

The puppet was the visual standout, and what drew me to the show initially, but it left me wondering why it was necessary when it was barely used and hardly added new information or ideas in its dialogue.

The time period seemed to jump between modern day and the era of witch burnings. this must've been intentional, maybe to show the way these social issues persist and transcend time, but it ended up being muddled and confusing.