Imagine a story with two puppets struggling for consciousness, a sinister East-End Orator, and an arty pinch of German Expressionism and what do you have? A modern fairytale that aims high, but ultimately gets lost in the woods.
Things didn’t start off well. Two smurf-blue puppet characters - played by Cat Sheridan and Jack Westgate - slowly awoke and tried to make sense of their situation. The emphasis here is on slowly. For some time they staggered about, limbs flailing distractingly. The effect was clearly supposed to suggest the movement of puppets, but the gestures were too loose; this made them appear jelly-limbed, as if they were standing on a vibrating washing machine.
The principal problem was that the performances during the first one and a half fables were, dare I say, wooden. This was all part of the point, after all they were playing puppets. But watching a performer flop about with a blank expression for an extended period of time while a crackly voice reads a story doesn’t make for engaging theatre.
Linking sections between the fables were provided by The Orator (Adam Cunis), a character somewhere between the emcee in Cabaret and a cockney circus barker. Cunis made the mistake of confusing volume with menace, delivering his speeches in a guttural bellow that was evidently as uncomfortable for his vocal cords as it was for the front row.
Things picked up as the puppets gained consciousness. Sheridan in particular captured a child-like wonder at the world and there were some touching moments of physical tenderness between the two puppets.
Throughout the play the influence of German Expressionism was plain to see. This is a difficult style to master and the design team must be praised for their attractive use of projections and lighting. When stars appeared an exclamation escaped from the audience, as the stars perfectly captured the appearance of expressionist beauty in the mundane. The weighty themes of man’s capacity for self-determination when removed from the divine maker clearly underlay the script, though these were sometimes over-laboured.
Atlas Theatre, a new group, are to be commended for their ambitious attempt in their first play. Unfortunately the magic wasn’t there.
