Fear of what the neighbours will say, fear of the priest’s penance and fear of God’s judgement hang over a fun-loving and somewhat rebellious young girl in The Red Shoes at Prague Fringe.
Cullen excels in the art of storytelling and how to make it gripping
Hans Christian Anderson’s somewhat gruesome fairy tale is given both an Irish and Buddhist makeover in this engaging adaptation, written and performed by Danni Cullen and directed by Jennifer Holland.
If nationalities are blessed with certain talents, then Cullen excels in the art of storytelling and how to make it gripping, using her distinctive Irish lilt, engaging eyes, stunning head of hair and a range of vocal inflexions. In musical terms she can go from sforzando via marcato to fortepiano and legato in one sentence. Raised in a remote part of Wicklow, why would she not know all about storytelling as entertainment?
Her tale is rooted in her own life and finding freedom away from the confines of catholicism and life in a claustrophobic community, but this is no self-indulgent piece of navel gazing, though she did some of that when she rose to the challenge of a ten day Vipassana silent retreat in southern Mexico. The passage of time is marked by striking together the tingsha, whose faded ring marks the end of one day and the start of yet another where she has to face the challenge of keeping her gob shut. However, this frees her mind to wander into a realm of stories and observations of people, when she is not thinking about food and the minimal rations she's living on.
The Red Shoes story is personalised and placed firmly in an Irish village context. Around it are woven snippets of the oppression under which young people grow up and women seem to endure forever, in a place with an idyllic facade. But if you tell someone they can’t do something, then for sure they’ll go and do it along with other things even more wicked. Temptation is hard to resist, so we hear how you just give into it, perhaps escape through the bedroom window and get up to all sorts of shenanigans and revel in the joy of dancing.
The heady blend of gossip, scandal, partying and sinning provides much humour, some amusing and some laugh-out-loud. Look beneath the surface of the craic, though, and Cullen’s show is an invitation to think about what you’re capable of and what holds you back; about whether you’ll conform, do as you’re told, so you don't get punished, or whether you have the courage to follow your own path. Will you, with Kate Bush “dance the dream and make the dream come true”?
