IN THE SHADOW OF TREES. To 24 December.
Huddersfield.
IN THE SHADOW OF TREES
Lawrence Batley Theatre To 24 December 2007.
Final Performance: 24 December 11am & 2pm.
Runs 1hr 5min No interval.
TICKETS: 01484 430528.
www.lawrencebatleytheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 19 December.
Finely constructed story maintains its serious charm.
Having spent Decembers in Manchester and Halifax, Horse & Bamboo’s family show arrives in Huddersfield. It’s a wordless wonder, the story of a boy abandoned in a benevolent forest where only man, in the guise of callous, deer-killing hunters, is vile.
In the Lawrence Batley Theatre the colourful, stylised forest is more distant, and the whole event more of a stage performance than it seemed in the inclusive intimacy of the Royal Exchange’s Studio two years ago. Never mind; this remains a first-rate piece of imaginative theatre for the young, which adults with any degree of imagination will warm to as well.
The abandoned child grows quickly through two puppet states into a masked human actor. At first a subject of curiosity for the gentle examination by the forest creatures, he grows up as part of their life. In essence it’s a modern-age Jungle Book though with a tangled wood rather than a vast jungle, and none of Kipling’s conflicting species.
Light plays delicately within the overall darkness, while music underscores much of the action, heightening mood and giving a sense of continuity to what are in practice rapidly-passing years.
Ultimately, the human child finds companionship with another, who visits the forest. Each shares his experiences and finds a response the other animals cannot provide. But the Spirit of the Forest, a large face that rises just twice, near the beginning and then just before the end, atop a 2-dimensional body, remains as life goes on.
In its unhurried pacing, the carefully characterised movements of its scampering, probing and fluttering creatures, In the Shadow of Trees is both a colourful parade and an exploration of how change and growth occur as an inevitable aspect in life. Visually and aurally delightful, it’s to be hoped it will emerge somewhere else along the M62 – or in another part of the human jungle - next year.
Cast and credits not available.
2007-12-24 02:11:35