THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKERS. To 10 January.

Leeds

THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKERS
by Mike Kenny

West Yorkshire Playhouse Barber Studio To 10 January 2004
Mon-Sat 11an & 1.45pm No performances 25,26 December, 1 January
Runs 1hr No interval

TICKETS: 0113 213 7700
www.wyp.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 13 December

Good moments, but overmuch detail - not always clear - damages the overall impact.Mike Kenny's piece about two Elves who help impoverished shoemakers by running up some highly saleable footwear over the two nights before Christmas makes the point that people can help each other when one person's work is another's amusement. And that new knacks and ideas can invigorate a dying business.

Not that such a point is likely to be a focus for the show's intended 3-5s. But they'll enjoy the relationships, kindly and playful respectively, between the human and elvish couples.

In Polka Theatre's gentle small-scale production, the couples' warmth was emphasised. At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, as Northern Stage Ensemble's Gulbenkian Christmas show, the actors doubled as Elves rather than using puppets, the humour becoming more broadly energetic.

Gail McIntyre's Leeds revival reverts to puppets but uses them with swaggering knockabout impact. The be-nappied twosome swing through the air on human hands, hiding and tricking one another before setting to fun making the overnight shoes.

In contrast is the fussily comfortable relationship between the human shoemakers, genteelly trying to conceal their joint poverty no wood to burn, no bread to eat - by diverting each other's attention elsewhere. When fortune returns, they take delight in buying each other Christmas presents. Such moments chime with the production's repeated theme-song It's Always Dark Before the Dawn' with its promise of Winter leading to Spring.

Emma Williams' set for this traverse-staged production (audience either side of the corridor-shaped acting area) combines polished floorboards with suggestions of snow outside. Two banks of audience, two actors - tempting the production to over-use the scheme of one actor addressing each bank. It fragments rather than uniting the viewers in a shared experience.

Then, too, actors bending over puppets often create inward focus for a theatre format relying on interactivity and a preponderance of outward-directed positions.

The space itself a rehearsal room doesn't help with its echoing acoustic. But excessive, comic puppet business clogs the slight action's forward propulsion, without sufficient flexibility or purposeful detail. There are well-managed moments, but generally the impact is muffled by the staging and the space.

Old Man: Simon Kerrigan
Old Woman: Jess Dawson

Director: Gail McIntyre
Designer: Emma Wiliams
Lighting: Melani Nicola
Composer: Julian Ronnie
Director of Puppetry: John Barber

2003-12-15 01:37:07