Theatre MSU puts on shows every semester that feature talented student actors, and this year, students performed “The Jungle Book” as part of the Lyceum Series on Sept. 26. in McComas Hall.

Right off the bat, the curtain rose to a young girl dancing to Indian music. The dance was very interpretative and flowing, incorporating the sounds of the sitar and bansuri flute, instruments native to Indian culture. As the music finished and the curtain rose, the audience then saw a bedroom and office set up.

The plot then unfolded as a young girl named Josephine had a nightmare. When she woke up, she ran to her father, who decided to start reading a story to get her back to bed. The story was one that he had written called ‘The Jungle Book.”

Throughout the play, the audience listened with Josephine as a boy named Mowgli is raised in the jungle by the animals that live there, mostly by a bear named Baloo and a panther named Bagheera.

Ten-year-old Natalie Knight, who played Josephine, talked about her emotions and the empathy required to act. 

“When I found out, I was really excited and a little bit nervous,” Knight said. “I thought about what it would be like to be her when I was practicing so I could get my lines right.”

There was a lot of crowd participation as audience members watched actors like Knight. Both children and adults listened to and then repeated the phrases “We be of one blood, you and I” and “Look well, oh wolves,” followed by an animal sound. At the start of the show, there were actors who came out on stage and told the audience that whenever Mowgli and his friends said those words, they should repeat them. This continued throughout the whole play, much to the delight of both adults and children around the stage.

The stage play shifted between the two settings of England in 1894 and the jungles of India. Towards the front of the stage, there was an English office set up where the story was being read. With the main actors, there were also scenes portrayed as shadow puppets.

One of these scenes was the beginning of the play, where baby Mowgli was found and brought into the wolf den to be raised by the wolf pack. Other scenes were the monkey tribe kidnapping Mowgli and Sher Khan’s death. The shadow puppets gave the play a secondary depth, immersing audience members in the fictional story that Josephine listens to as the play has a story within the larger story. 

When asked about the preparation of the puppets, sophomore criminology major Jayden Aronson, one of the puppeteers, spoke about preparing to use the puppets and the challenges overcome. 

“It was a little awkward practicing for the puppet scenes because we didn’t actually have the puppets until about a week before the show,” Aronson said. “So until then, we were working on voices and how to convey the different characters by throwing our voices around.”

As the play came to an end, it had a bittersweet ending. It ended with Mowgli not being accepted by the village or the jungle. When Josephine asked why it ended in this way, her father told her it was to enforce the message that she must write her own ending if she wants it to be a happy one.

Vineeth Vanga, a senior biochemistry major who played Baloo, spoke about this ending.

“It’s really inspiring that the overall message was to go write your own ending, especially in a children’s play, because it lets kids know that their future is up to them,” Vanga said. “And that they can choose the path they want to take.”

Since the story was set in India, the cast and directors did their best to celebrate the culture with the play. As the directors planned the play, and actors practiced the play, there was a guest dancer on staff making sure every dance and movement done was accurate to Indian culture.

Many actors in the play also said they researched and learned background information for their roles. This enhanced the play, since the research made the production appear more accurate to the time period and location being portrayed.

Theatre MSU brought the jungles of India to Starkville in this work of art and wonder. This family-friendly play was packed with humor and crowd participation for everyone.