A Pirate's Life For Me!

It all started well enough. The audience entered. Two-sided cards were laid on chairs – skulls on one side, crossbones on the other. Two actors, who turned out later to be narrator-storytellers were asleep. Then they woke up. The outlook darkened progressively from there. These performers’ characters were supposed to be a husband and wife – he, a grumpy old man, she the power behind the throne. Unfortunately, the male actor chose to infuse his character with boredom and depression, rather than grumpiness, and the rest of the cast had to struggle against the wave of gloom that poured onto the stage while the storyteller couple set up the story, his contribution as effective as a hole in the keel of a seaworthy ship. But after a while, things started to look up when the cast announced that, at crucial moments in the plot, the audience were going to be asked to vote for whether they wanted the story to go in one direction or another. So that's what the voting cards were for. Interesting – everyone was keen to play along. And the story began. There were elements of this production which clearly showed that thought had gone into the planning – a lot of thought. Household items such as waste paper bins and hat stands were used inventively and textile hangings served to provide flexible changes of scene. The costumes were innovative – most of the players were dressed as ‘baddie’ pirates on one side and ‘goodie’ sailors on the other. ‘Ooh good, we get to boo the baddies and cheer the goodies,’ the kid in me piped up. The story was set for the goodies to set out to discover buried treasure, followed by the pirates who were trying to get it off them. The kid in me still bravely refused to buy into the pessimism which had started to settle again when the actors, following unsubtle direction, hampered by the costumes, had to walk on or offstage backwards, bumping into things, depending on who they were representing. But the naïve euphoria didn’t last long. There was no booing and cheering at all. Then a moment of choice came. Yay! We got to choose, to get involved! Where would the plot end up? Well, port or starboard would have been good, but the two directions available only seemed to go progressively backwards or downwards in terms of energy flow, as it didn’t seem to matter at all to the cast where the story went – apart from one choice which left two lovers in a sub-plot unrequited towards the end. An attempt at getting the audience up to dance in the middle ended up with one lone kid trying their best, then sitting down. Mr Grumpy gave up when everyone else in the audience refused to cooperate. The show went on. The problem with getting kids – and grown-ups for that matter – involved in an interactive show is that they have to be engaged in the drama. What they contribute has to matter to how the story unfolds. Arbitrary fence-sitting in terms of open-ended choices is a great democratic idea, but it just doesn’t work dramatically – or at least it could if you show some commitment. The show just went on – and on. The audience sank deeper into the depths of the ocean of despair, hitting the bottom when they heard the lyrics to the songs (which had some catchy music with lots of potential, actually – the composer should try their hand at some musical theatre, but get a different lyricist). In a ‘You’re the cream in my coffee’-type love ballad, the lovers sang ‘I’m the carrot,’ ‘You’re the peas.’ … ‘I’m the picnic to your fly.’ And what self-respecting pirate would sing, ‘Yo ho ho, and a rum tum tum, there’s nothing better than sucking my thumb’? Ah … it was supposed to be comedy … I nearly cried, and not from laughter. Two cast members with snorkelling action that had to be seen to be believed lifted the action and the show beyond a no-star rating … Captain Redblood, the Pirate Captain and the actress who played the double characters of Peg Leg Percy and Tina the Preener. Both had voices that carried well, made the most of their characters, and she put some effort into putting the love song across in both the characters she played, with everything from costume, stage direction and Mr Grumpy working against her. The audience surfaced as the show eventually crashed into port, with none of the audience members (perhaps even the cast) any the wiser why a pirate’s life was so great … since the ones that had all the fun were the ‘goodie’ sailors, who confusingly weren’t pirates, but went ‘Har’ in good pirate fashion with everybody else. There are some great professional interactive kids’ shows on the fringe and some truly magical ones. As far as I’m concerned, this production, regrettably, or at least the performance I saw of it, currently can’t be counted amongst them.