Created by the company and directed by Michael Levinton, who is also in the cast, “Skinnamarink” was inspired by McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers, textbooks that were first published in 1836 and remained wildly popular until the early 20th century. Paralleling the books’ blend of pedagogy and moralizing, the show constantly plays off the double meaning of the word “instruction” — a schooling process but also a disciplinary tool. Groupthink is encouraged and whoever gets the dunce cap is shamed: “No one loves a bad boy. While much of the material, like a cautionary tale about a “greedy girl,” is lifted from the Eclectic Readers, the company’s magpie M.O. These disparate borrowings are integrated into a bewildering whole that is much tighter than Little Lord’s chaotically sprawling previous production, “Now Is the Time.

Source: New York Times March 14, 2019 01:41 UTC