After the company presented a series of these Philip Pullman adaptations of fairytales by the Grimm Brothers four years' ago, the success of which was followed by questions of, "when will you do more?" , the society have now answered by serving the community with a second helping of six more grim Grimm Tales.
Fairy stories come in all shapes and sizes, but the magical ones upon which every child, at least in northern Europe, bases their dreams and fantasies on, often are far more gruesome and bleak in their original form. The killing of family members through jealousy, the cutting off of limbs, the sheer glee at which this cruelty is doled out, avarice, evil witches and witches that turn into fairies, abandonment, homelessness, adoration of youth and beauty, and the real and harsh divisions between the poor and the rich. These are just some of the themes present in many of our more popular children's tales even to this day, and certainly these elements were present in this evening's six pieces.
The setting for these pieces though was not on the stage, but a far more intimate space in the theatre's auditorium had been created, with just over 100 seats for the audience to sit in three rows on all four sides. A raised acting area had been created, whilst in the centre a leafless tree bearing magical lights and a large pit from which eminated mist. The mood was created from the start with medieval-style music as the characters to perform in the first play gathered at each of the four edges of the auditorium. Dressed in modern day blacks as a base costume, each character was then given a semblance of medieval dress to wear on top of this depending upon the character they were to play. It was a nice hark back to the travelling players.. the original storytellers and theatremakers whose costumes were mainly whatever they could get their hands on, and usually improvised at the time of performance. This idea of medieval storytelling was further enhanced by each of the characters in the story taking part in the story's narration. When that particular actor was not required to be acting as a character they stood on the edge of the stage to narrate the story, sometimes three or four performers taking just a small clause each of an extended sentence.
Minimal props were used throughout, but again, those that were used were totally in keeping with the storytelling idea, and adding to this, the director decided to use much puppetry too. Again, puppetry is a very ancient form of storytelling with its roots going back to the 1st century BC. Here the company scored highly with specially created puppets of both small children and animals which added humour and wonder to these stories.
The one thing which most unfortunately did not work quite so well this evening was the lighting. Perhaps if the tree's lights could have been turned off when the actors were performing it might have helped I don't know, but sadly there were many times when the protagonists' faces were either in shadow or completely unlit.
Director Justine Sutcliffe worked excellently with a large group of performers to bring about these stories: several of which performed in the Grimm Stories four years' ago, whilst others were new to them with one actress taking her first ever acting role this evening. This made for a most interesting mix of knowledge and expectation but all worked together excellently as an ensemble.
Personally, I found that the evening did drag a little as there was little variation in the six stories, but all were most interesting and deftly told. The first story of the evening I knew (Rapunzel), but did not know the following five stories at all, despite one having elements of King Lear and another seemed like a strange version of Cinderella!
Bravo to the company for producing something so completely different and unexpected. Sometimes a little bit gruesome, sometimes funny, often clever, these six stories offer you a festive theatre experience like no other.... and remember, good will always triumph over evil!
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