Legal woes for Locks

Goldilocks on Trial is a light and entertaining play that caters mostly to a youthful audience and to the friends and families of those onstage. Put on by Theatreworks of Northern Nevada, Goldilocks on Trial is the story of Goldilocks’ journey through the judicial system, after being accused of eating all of Mama, Papa and Baby Bear’s porridge.

The original Goldilocks is a fairytale about a young, blonde girl who looks much more innocent than she really is. One afternoon, she’s hauling along through the woods and discovers the home of the three bears. Inside, there is porridge on the table and not a bear in sight, so Goldilocks does what any hungry troublemaker would do and devours all of the porridge, breaks Baby Bear’s chair and falls asleep in her bed—only for the Bear family to come home and find her there. The moral of the story is something like, keep your hands off other people’s junk. Or, stay away from bears.

One of the more notable characters in both the story and play is Merwin, the Big Bad Wolf, who’s played by Robert Hemenway. In the play, Merwin provides Goldilocks with an alibi, claiming she was with him the whole time, an attempt at profess his love for her and getting her off the hook for the porridge-pilfering charges. Judge Judy T. Wallabee, played by Anna Kintzer, is an absolutely hilarious character, who clearly doesn’t want to be involved in all the drama. She spends her time wishing she were eating curly fries, instead of conducting a whodunit trial over something about which she really couldn’t care less.

Goldee Wynn Locks, played by Hannah Davis, is a character you could recognize as Goldilocks from a mile away, as she does an awesome job at portraying the supposedly sweet yet mischievous girl that her character is known to be. The costumes in this play are excellent, as is all the makeup. Each of the cast members is dolled up to look exactly like the characters they are imitating, and the jury of adorable little girls with their hair curled perfectly into little ringlets is simply icing on the cake. One of the better costumes in the play is that of District Attorney Muffinhead, played by Taylor McClellan, whose get-up makes her look like she stepped out of a Disney-fied nightmare.

Throughout the play, Judge Wallabee keeps trying to say that Goldilocks is guilty, so that all can be said and done. However, the defense won’t have it, and goes on to make their case that Goldilocks is just as innocent as she appears.

The plot’s many twists and turns are unexpected and fun, so the younger members of the audience aren’t forced to just sit there and know everything that’s about to happen. Instead, Goldilocks on Trial is true to the original fairytale while managing to change it around a bit. This is an enjoyable play for the whole family. And, no matter what kind of sense of humor you have, you’ll find plenty to laugh about when Goldilocks goes before the judge.