IN ONE EAR. To 1 January.

London

IN ONE EAR
by Theatre Rites

Theatre Rites at Lyric Hammersmith Studio To 1 January 2005
Tue-Fri 10.15am & 1.15pm to 17 December
11am & 2pm 11; 20-23; 29-31 Dec
1pm & 4pm 1 Jan
Runs 1hr 5min no interval

TICKETS: 08700 500511
www.lyric.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 7 December

Thumping good fun from a company that understands how young audiences respond and learn.Theatre Rites excel with non-narrative theatre for young audiences (here 3-6s). This piece is based around drums, delightfully revealed as panels slide back and forth. Sometimes these drums are objects of wonder just by their appearance: transforming, exploring shapes, revealing other shapes, or people, from their interiors.

Increasingly, though, aural possibilities are explored, directly through the sounds the various tubes and cylinders make or by implication through sounds their shapes might suggest. So, a wood strip taken from one drum becomes a huge flexi-loop, the performers voicing the kind of boing' it would provide if it were metallic.

Later, such a loop appears which is metallic, and does its own boinging'. In turn, it's used to construct a human outline. Which is given a guitar-like section as a bodily infill. As in a game, one idea leads to another. It's imaginative play, the foundation for adult creativity.

Which is clearly present in Sue Buckmaster, Sophia Clist and Evelyn Ficarra, who assemble all these objects and ideas. Integrated so completely, it's hard to know the direction of inspiration where objects influenced action, or rehearsal actions led to new objects being made.

Non-percussive instruments emerge too, played solo or together. There's a particularly acute introduction of the cello, framed by pliable wood bent into cello-suggesting shape. And within the theatre adventure there's a thematic development, as one performer tries to impose his own rhythms on events. It doesn't work and he finds himself alone until he returns sad, to be re-admitted by the group.

But mostly it's the events which compose the narrative, discoveries delighted in and having significance in themselves, rather than by contributing to any external story or disclosing any theme (though that is, of course, a theme). It echoes children's delight in discovery and willingness to imagine a story through objects; these skilful artefacts all have the appearance of simple things.

Some very young audience members found the span a long time to have their attention held, but concentration was high, as was post-show delight when there was a chance to play selected instruments, from mini-harp to ocean drum.

Performers: Nicholas Goode, Renzo Murrone, Mohsen Nouri, Hussein Zahawy

Director/Puppet Design: Sue Buckmaster
Visual Artist/Puppet Design: Sophia Clist
Lighting: Aideen Malone
Composer: Evelyn Ficarra
Assistant director/Dramaturg: Philippe Cherbonnier

2004-12-09 01:05:58