Ready Steady Yeti Go

The cast fares better when doubling as the adults involved. Especially Ms. St. Clair's excellent, nuanced monologue portraying the grownups in her life. The ending does not come to any new conclusions nor lead to any intuitive realizations.

These "kids" are a heckuva lot better than all right. They are terrific, in David Jacobi's equally terrific play. Sporting a delightfully quirky title, Ready Steady Yeti Go is a marvelous bit of craftsmanship. It's a look at the perils of childhood, the pitfalls of adulthood, and how ill-equipped we all seem to be at just getting along.

Regarding the script, the performances sail above the often meandering script that makes some strong points and allows the actors to have some wonderfully strong acting moments. However the ending left this reviewer wondering "what is the author trying to say"?

Director Guillermo Cienfuegos (and Movement Director, Myrna Gawryn) keep a nice, crisp pace throughout the entire production with fluid stage movement, and (even though performance styles are divided) performances are strong and clear.

Ultimately, though there’s much to recommend in this National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere, Ready Steady Yeti Go is not quite ready to go as is. As a showcase for its talented cast, it’s a winner. With some rethinking, rewrites, and cuts, it might be a real keeper. With actual kids playing kids, it would be something else indeed.

I was happy to have spent an evening in their company—even though I did feel the play would have worked a lot better at sixty rather than ninety minutes.

The title Ready Steady Yeti Go refers to the catch phrase the kids utter when they’re about to set up a new scene, suggesting, as the 95 to 100-minute play progresses, that with each new set-up they have the chance to rewrite, revise and correct the historical record. Playwright David Jacobi’s conceit could be compared to the way, with each racist incident that occurs in America, the country has the chance to achieve understanding and resolution, but the historical loop of racism keeps on spinning. Sometimes, like now, it’s barely noticed or even lamented: There were “very fine people on both sides” in Charlottesville, said our president.

So while this loop of national racial trauma keeps whirling around from one generation to the next, we see in Jacobi’s characters a study in the nonlinear complexity of personality, projected back into the past, perhaps as far back as slavery times, and forward into the ongoing and the future.

...the best thing about this one-acter is its childhood ambiance, enhanced by scenic designer David Mauer’s set and costume designer Christine Cover Ferro’s outfits. The playbill’s use of photos of the cast and crew from when they were kids is a clever, inspired touch. St. Clair’s brief performance as her parents takes jabs at stage and screen stereotypes of Blacks, while her incarnation of Carly is very poignant.

David Jacobi writes from a place of understanding the chasm between intention and effect. He pokes fun at “The More You Know…” NBC’s public service announcement campaign from the 1990s that often took up issues of tolerance and diversity. Certainly, allowing Carly to take control from a white character playing her mother is a nod to that understanding. Yet over the course of the evening, the play inadvertently becomes the very thing it takes aim at: a white response to racism that makes white people feel better about themselves.

High energy, much comedy and with a message that doesn’t browbeat you, “Ready, Steady, Yeti, Go” by David Jacobi, mounted by Rogue Machine (one of LA’s finest small theatre companies), is excellent.

Outstanding performances...believable in every detail. Their intentions are pure, admirable, politically correct and up to the minute, timely. You like kids? You’ll like this play.

One hundred percent perfectly-imagined and beautifully produced theatre. High energy, much comedy… one of the most outstanding casts I’ve seen on stage in LA. Go see it.

Rogue Machine Theatre continues to challenge itself…it succeeds. Hits us with social issues, ethics, silliness, puppy love and a roundabout of excellent theatre...lights up the Electric Lodge.

A real who-dunnit…primer for prejudice. Has structure and a goal. But it’s really more about how pre-adolescents see their world – and react to things that happen to them. Director Guillermo Cienfuegos does a brilliant job of helming the production; he obviously remembers what it was like to be young and crazy and sweet.

Playwright David Jacobi covers important territory with his timely tale of racism in small town America, but he also touches our hearts with his exploration of first love and the unbreakable bond between family. Those subplots play almost as compellingly as the main story. See this play...poignant and humorous.

David Jacobi’s new play Ready Steady Yeti Go is a satirical comedy that narrows its focus on a white community’s response to a hate crime told through a middle-schooler’s point of view. The Rogue Machine’s snappy, playful production maintains poignancy despite the script’s ultimate shortcomings.

The writing does capture the ineffable delights and indignities of being 12, however, and the actors, warmly directed by Guillermo Cienfuegos, have such a good time letting their inner children out to play that they’re a treat to watch.

While clever, it lacks a comedic punch with the dialogue, besides the obvious “ it’s funny because they’re kids and they do the darndest things.”