Theater review: Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type

by Arnold Wayne Jones of Dallas Voice

Alfred Hitchcock famously said actors should be treated like cattle, which is exactly what director Doug Miller gets to do with Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type, now at the Dallas Children’s Theater. Actually, only two actors are cows (Deborah Brown and Cara Statham-Serber); one is a hen (Maxey Whitehead) and another a duck (Brian Hathaway). (Only Willy Welch gets to be a human.) But what a militantly sweet-natured barnyard they make.

Militant? Isn’t this children’s theater? Well, sort of. “Click Clack Moo” has to be the most revolutionary piece of kid-lit since Heather Has Two Mommies. The cows, hen and duck are engaged in a kind of cold war: They are at war with Farmer Brown because they are cold. Taking their cues from Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Karl Marx and George Orwell, they plan a leftist revolt, going on strike (no milk or eggs) until they achieve social justice. (Think Chik-Fil-A ads with Black Power fists raised, and you get the idea.)

The production is performed with aw-shucks delight by the entire cast. The songs, while less than memorable, bounce along happily. Laurie Land’s costumes almost steal the show. As Cow #2, Statham Serber is bedecked in a Patty Hearst-style beret and with chains on her udder than adds a vaguely S&M quality; Duck is dapper in his ecru “duxedo;” and Hen is ruffled in feathery petticoats.

Does such subversiveness belong in a kids’ show? You bet it does. The DCT clearly represents the current political climate in the age of Obama: Cows, Hen and Duck represent change you can believe in.

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