THE GOLDEN GOOSE. To 13 January.
Manchester
THE GOLDEN GOOSE
by Charles Way
Library Theatre To 13 January 2007
23, 26030 Dec, 1, 3, 6 13 Jan 2.30pm & 7pm
2 Jan 7pm
5, 12 Jan 10.30am & 7pm
8 Jan 2.15pm
9, 11 Jan 10.30am & 2.15pm
10 Jan 2.15pm
Audio-described 10 Jan 2.15pm, 13 Jan 2.30pm
Lone Parents 1 Jan 2.30pm
BSL Signed 1 Jan 7pm, 10 Jan 2.15pm
Runs 2hr 10min One interval
TICKETS: 0161 236 7110
www.librarytheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 20 December
The Library lays a golden Christmas show.
Ever-inventive, Charles Way has 2 Christmas shows on this year. While his Keswick Sindbad reworks an Arabian night this Manchester play (which the author directs) echoes A Midsummer Night’s Dream alongside the traditional impoverished woodcutter’s family of folk-tales.
An orphaned family, too, where single mum Christina can’t help showing favouritism for self-confident, strong-looking son Boris over younger, fumbling Dummling. If ever a lad was tutored by nurture into feeling himself a failure it’s ever-willing, always silenced Dummling, whose old-patterned cardigan places him among the also-rans while separating him visually from the otherwise traditional-folk-dressed family.
His mother treats him with impatience because she’s overworked, trying to subsist in a land where rain no longer falls. With Boris, it’s deliberate as he repeatedly connives to throw blame on his milder-mannered brother. But it’s soon clear Boris’s brash and boastful manner covers fear as well as selfishness. Dummling, with his sympathy towards nature and ability thereby to see the fairy folk, is the only one to survive the forest unscathed.
There, the fairies are puckish sprights who mislead and trap humans travelling in their realm. Their rulers’ quarrel extends to their role as narrators, using a pop-up storybook. Way provides a 3rd contrast in the incapable king’s daughters. Dajona never laughs, all locked within herself in a world that offers little, though sister Birgit finds it endlessly amusing (she calms down as she becomes involved in the action, which is as well or she’d soon be intensely annoying).
Way covers so much in all this the goose itself is almost sidelined. Its 3 golden eggs have no power themselves, but are merely ways of providing purchasing power. And the play’s quests are like interludes, rather than core to the adventure. One, to a scientific ‘uninventor’, contains more than the story can allow it. Like Sindbad, the piece shows more interest in characters and themes than story development.
But, compared with many young people’s plays, this is rich and ambitious. Way’s direction, on Jamie Vartan’s flexible set, its atmospheres of woodland and court emphasised by Nick Richings’ lighting, and his cast are all impeccable.
Dummling: Paul Stocker
Boris: Andrew Grose
Christina/Humble: Rebecca Smart
Dajona: Eleanor Howell
Birgit: Annie Rowe
King Conrad/Meek: William Finkenrath
Fairy King/Hermit: Stephen Finegold
Fairy Queen/White Witch: Rebecca Hulbert
Director: Charles Way
Designer: Jamie Vartan
Lighting: Nick Richings
Sound: Paul Gregory
Composer: Richard Taylor
Movement: Georgina Lamb
Assistant director: Simon Pittman
2006-12-22 14:24:22