Keith Bunin realized some beneficial classes in his three years working for animation juggernaut Pixar. Key amongst them is that when zillions of youngsters flock to the most recent providing from the Emeryville studio, dad and mom observe carefully behind.
“I took those lessons I learned very seriously,” he says. “And I think the great thing about working there is that Pixar has a very clear mandate. They are not making children’s films, but making films for everyone, and that’s always been the case.”
Bunin’s abilities as a author have carried younger sensibilities in a few of his most substantial work, together with his writing credit score on the Pixar movie “Onward” and HBO’s tv collection “In Treatment,” crafting 12-year-old Oliver, a personality in the midst of his dad and mom’ fixed chaos. Bunin utilized those self same sensibilities to a brand new undertaking at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the place his job was to do one thing he hasn’t achieved in his profession — adapt a bestselling youngsters’s novel for the theatrical stage.
“The Thing About Jellyfish” is making its world premiere, pushed by some heavy muscle and Berkeley Rep’s assets. Along with the supply materials, the 2015 critically-acclaimed fiction debut from writer Ali Benjamin, the locomotive behind the undertaking is British American, New York-based director Tyne Rafaeli, who found the ebook through the COVID-19 pandemic.
The story follows Suzy Swanson, who’s beginning the seventh grade not lengthy after her greatest pal Franny drowned through the ensuing summer season. However Suzy is satisfied Franny’s demise was the results of a jellyfish sting, in the end working along with her science trainer to craft a principle with what has grow to be Suzy’s exhaustive accumulation of jellyfish information.
Suzy’s craving to make sense of the premature tragedy is made all of the extra difficult contemplating each women had an unresolved falling throughout sixth grade. Very similar to Suzy, Rafaeli was making an attempt to make sense of the world throughout these lonely, darkish hours of Covid’s shelter-in-place.
“Those days, hope was hard to come by,” Rafaeli mentioned. “Then I read the book in one sitting and was immediately inspired by the potential of it being a play, both because of its emotional resonance and theatrical potential.”
That potential speaks to how vivid the story is, and Rafaeli, who has her personal distinguished profession as a multi-hyphenate director, was struck by its inherent theatricality.
“It’s very rare for a play, but much more common for a musical, to have the kind of visuals and storytelling this story allows and kind of demands,” Rafaeli mentioned. “Those two things immediately made me say yes, sign me up because I want to be part of this development.”
That each Bunin and Rafaeli had been dedicated to paying correct homage to Benjamin’s story spills into each side of their creation. The rehearsal room for the “Jellyfish,” which opens Feb. 5, was democratic, the place the youthful actors had main sway on the characters’ decisions and voices, as a method to offer authenticity to the manufacturing.
“I don’t feel that we have a room where it’s adults versus children,” Rafaeli mentioned. “I think what’s so moving about this rehearsal room is the co-mingling of generations, and the way each generation is feeding the other, is singular.
Developing the novel for the stage (it has also been optioned by Reese Witherspoon for a film) means leaning into the truth of the story’s multilayered crevices, expounding the emotions that exist within the early adolescence both girls are navigating. A traditional theater base will not have that demographic locked down, nor might that older base be familiar with a popular children’s novel.
It’s within those moments where Bunin feels confident that the story’s universality will appeal to all generations.
“You could come to this play with as much or as little preconceived understanding of the material,” Bunin mentioned. “One of the great things about this piece is that it really meets everyone where they live in a fantastic way. This play is about a very singular experience of a 12-year-old girl experiencing loss and grief for the first time. And for the adults in the audience, it’s allowing them to go back to that first moment when they felt those things and had that experience, looking at those feelings anew through Suzy’s eyes.”
David John Chávez is chair of the American Theatre Critics Affiliation and a two-time juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (‘22-‘23); @davidjchavez.bsky.social
‘THE THING ABOUT JELLYFISH’
Tailored by Keith Bunin based mostly on the novel by Ali Benjamin, introduced by Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Dates: Feb. 5 – March 9 (previews start Jan. 31)
The place: Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley
Tickets: $47-$134; berkeleyrep.org
