“Do you believe in magic?”
Asks the mysterious bean-producing gardener
at the start of Jacky and the Bean,
Linda A. Carson’s updated take on the
classic Jack And The Beanstalk story.
If young audiences members do — and
they bring a healthy dose of imagination
along — they’ll find themselves quickly
tangled up in this likeable, story.
The play stays pretty close to the basics of
the familiar tale, while giving it an ecological
message and paring it down for
the stage.
Young Jacky lives with his dad on a farm
where “the dirt is dead” — nothing’s
grown there for years. And so poor Jacky
is sent to sell his last worldly possessions
— a few toys, which she tries to pawn off
to kids in the audience, one of many audience
participation scenes.