Let's go see Charotte's Web! That'll be fun!

In my never-ending quest to be the best mom ever, I jumped on the opportunity to take my kids to the local children's theater's adaptation just yesterday.  (Perfect eldest son [Pes], opted out. As usual, he is smarter than I am).  Also, because I have decided to actively participate in my children's educations, I started reading Charlotte's Web to Stalin (youngest son) at the beginning of summer. Thus, I could tie in the novel with the play. Yeeeeaaah.

Due to circumstances beyond my control (Stalin couldn't figure out how it was still light out at bedtime. Every night. For weeks. This is all we talked about), we only got a quarter of the way through Charlotte's Web and that pig is still smiling menacingly at me every time I put Stalin to bed.  Luckily, he knows it's nighttime now even though it's light out.  Brilliant.

So, the appointed day arrived. We were early and got first pick of seats.We sat in front. Zsa Zsa wanted to be further back, Eva's back hurt because we were on the bench without a padded back thingy, and Stalin, surprisingly, didn't complain. I thought it was cool because we were basically on the stage! And then it started.

To be fair, this theater troupe had to condense a long, somewhat maturely themed novel into one hour. However, I mostly did not enjoy the production. I am trying to figure out if it is because I was spoiled by extremely good theater with box seats when Big Shot Husband was a bigger shot than he is now? Or is it because I have an IQ higher than 12? Let me just summarize my main complaints:
1) Wilbur was played by a much too "happy" guy wearing large amounts of pink, including pink converse (why?).
2) Lurvy had some crazy accent that sounded like Boston by way of London and appeared extremely "slow." I know this verbiage because I was watching "Teen Mom" (yes, you read that right) the other night and Maci, her baby-daddy Ryan and her new paramour "Kaaa-hhl" (this is the name "Kyle" in the Union states) had a whole text-induced discussion on wheather Kaaa-hhl was "slow" or not.  I gather this means an IQ lower than 12.
3) Charlotte was played by a beaming African-American lady who was dressed in all brown with bright red shoes. Do arachnids have red feet? She Alivin Ailey'd her way through the part and smiled so much that I was wondering how much Prozac she was on.
4) I was a little offended by Templeton the rat's casting. He was an African-American guy, a little ghetto, with a blue crips bandana around the neck. And a long rat's tail slung across the shoulder. PC anyone?

Anyway, overall it was, um, cute. I looked over at Stalin at one point (Zsa Zsa and Eva had high-tailed it to the row behind us to enhance their comfort with the extra padding), and he was beaming, clearly enjoying himself.  This is when I remembered how many times it took to remind him of the summer light late thing.  And I thought about the miracle of a child's little brain: neurons firing, misfiring, tracing new patterns, expanding the capabilities for memory, learning. . . This is my mantra, "Children's brains don't work right."