CINDERELLA. To 27 January.

London.

CINDERELLA
adapted from the Brothers Grimm and others.

Little Angel Theatre 14 Dagmar Passage N1 2DN To 27 January 2008.
Wed-Fri 10am & 1pm Sat-Sun 11am, 2pm*.
Runs 1hr 30min One interval.

TICKETS: 020 7226 1787.
www.littleangeltheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 5 January.

Wooden figures reach to the story’s human core.
Cinderella’s story is told for 5+ at Islington’s Little Angel by puppets and puppeteers. At times the humans are very obvious; a couple offer their pedal extremities, which prove too colossal, for Cinderella’s puppet-sized slipper. Some young audience members try it too; there were several would-be princesses in the audience, judging by the alacrity of shoe removal as Anthony Best’s servant moved through the stalls.

But mostly the operators take a back seat, expertly manipulating their charges into providing depth and detail for director Steve Tiplady’s richly imaginative version, rooted in the Grimm Brothers.

Have a ball, Cinderella? The Grimms include three, though without the usual travel arrangements and supernatural soliciting. The source of Cinders’ strength is memory of her dead mother, whose grave is marked by a tree where the girl finds solace in her life of misery.

Puppets aren’t expected to talk, and talk means progress, change, ideas. So they are ideal for showing, following opening snapshots of Cinderella’s happiness with her pet dog and sorrow at her mother’s death, the relentless misery of a daily existence which seems to stretch infinitely, turning life into a prison-camp, an unvaried, stultifying repetition of denial and humiliation.

There are four Cinderella puppets; the one in these scenes sweeps or weeps, slumping to the floor while her step-family fly around, braying in selfish delight, or coming to mock her. Any lonely or mistreated child will understand her instinctively, and others will feel the pity of her situation.

There’s constant beauty in the staging, with Cinders’ visions of crinolined figures (no expanse is spared) floating at each ball, the seasonal colour shifts in her tree’s leaves, mirrored in the colour of the invitations, or the wintry scene after stepmother’s chopped down Cinderella’s tree. Its twigs splinter through the air. And they form the girl’s ballgown - as if her mother’s spirit invigorates her at her lowest point, providing strength to dismiss the essentially cowardly stepmother.

Soaked in the warm string tones of Hannah Marshall’s score, which has its own moment of rhythmic resolution to underpin Cinders, this is theatre of wondrous poetic intensity.

Puppeteers: Anthony Best, Nele de Craecker, Mandy Travis, Rebekah Wild.

Director: Steve Tiplady.
Designer/Maker: Peter O’Rourke.
Lighting: Kieran Dicker.
Composer: Hannah Marshall.

Little Cinders, a 30-minute version for 2-5s replaces Cinderella on Thursdays & Sundays. Performances at 10.30 & 11.30am, including a baby friendly performance at 10.30am in 13 January.

2008-01-07 02:33:06