ONE DARK NIGHT. To 26 February.

Young People

ONE DARK NIGHT
by Mike Kenny

Tour to 26 February 2005
Runs 1hr No interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 5 February at Birmingham Rep (The Door)

Fine piece for 3-6s resonates with childhood experience.With two of Britain's leading young people's theatre companies working on a script by one of the country's most experienced (and prolific) dramatists for the young, you'd expect something exceptional. By and large, this production, touring daytimes for 3-6s, lives up to expectations.

Phil Clark, artistic director of Cardiff's Sherman Theatre (co-producers with Theatre Centre), directs a swift, fluid production, Nettie Scriven's undulating, moveable screens maximising the potential for shadowplay. Rightly so; this is a Me and My Shadow' story, its narrative assembled from the ordinary events of a day and night in the life of a young person at an age when daily life is still a wonder and adventure.

It's a momentous day in which our protagonist first goes to school (Not nursery. Big school. Reception. in the brief, patterned sentences Kenny uses to catch young children's speech rhythms, identifying and establishing as they announce). Film of playground activity emphasises the whirl to be joined as our' child stands shyly by.

(S)he's represented ingeniously by a stiffened, shiny red hooded coat, fur-lined round the face (emphasising there is a face, though materially there's simply black lining). Manipulated in detail and wheeled round by adult hands, it's a superb convention, evoking a sense of childlike curiosity and puzzlement (when for example mother stands talking to a friend, blocking out child's shadow). The child's speech is treated Greek chorus-like, fragmented between the four performers, either spoken or sung.

Shadow becomes tricky or playful, then at night grows to immense size the child's interior world taking over, says Kenny. This is the one point when I'd have been flummoxed without his programme note. Childhood experience gives way here to concept. It would take someone in the show's age range to confirm whether the point speaks more directly to them.

Told with physical verve and humour in Clark's admirable production itself an invitation to an imaginative voyage in theatre and acted with fine ensemble tautness by a cast who talk to the audience pre- and post-show to make this a friendly experience, this lively, imaginative piece is first-rate young people's theatre.

Cast:
Lynette Clarke, Glen Hill, Ceris Jones, Lucy Rivers

Director: Phil Clark
Designer: Nettie Scriven
Lighting: Ceri James
Music: Matthew Bailey
Musical Director: Paula Gardiner
Puppetry: Sean Myatt

2005-02-08 13:36:49