THE LITTLE FIR TREE. To 8 January.

Sheffield

THE LITTLE FIR TREE
by Hans Christian Anderson adapted by James Phillips

Crucible Studio To 8 January 2005
Mon-Sat 10.30am & 1.30pm except 27-28 Dec & 3 Jan 1.30pm & 4pm no performance 24-26, 31 Dec 1 Jan
Runs 1hr 15min No interval

TICKETS: 0114 249 6000
www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/buyit
Review: Timothy Ramsden 17 December

Nothing showy or noisy, but a well-told tale for the young making its point with feeling and fine acting.The Crucible's brilliant reputation for its mainstage work during Michael Grandage's directorship shouldn't blind us to its lower-profile yet equally high-quality young people's work. So it's hopeful to see incoming artistic director Samuel West in a Rotherham primary school watching the theatre's (very fine) autumn schools tour.

This Christmas play for 4+ is another excellent example of the Crucible's work for the young. Quietly imaginative, it takes place on a stage suggestive both of a 19th century domestic interior and the imaginative space of a proscenium theatre.

Theatre curtains and clothes-racks create both senses simultaneously while the predominant brown tones have a Victorian-era feel, soon to be offset by the green coat and built-up boots with which the household's daughter takes part at first reluctantly in the story her mother offers.

Truculent she may have started out but on becoming the sapling Fir Tree Olivia Darnley beams naïve optimism. Yet the human child's boredom is still present, if differently expressed. Existence is never enough for this fir-tree, who's always looking to the future instead of living the present. One of her few spontaneous acts involves using a young tree's supposed ability to move short distances effortfully dragging those boots suggests it's not easy to shade a young woodcutter dreaming hopelessly of his princess.

With an irony the fir-tree never realises, this woodcutter later chops her down to become a Christmas tree, before abandoning her in a lonely attic (stark unfocussed light intensifying the cold loneliness seen in Darnley's unhappy, puzzled features) and ultimately destroying her to make firewood (flame-red strands flowing from both the woodcutter's matches and the tree's green-coated pockets). Only when it's too late does delight in leaving the attic change to alarm.

As the Mother, Leandra Lawrence frames the action with mature care, well contrasted by her callow masculine stride as the woodcutter. Cait Davis's experience in physical theatre makes her fine casting for the tortoise-hating Hare (remember Aesop), a proud upright creature who melts into friendship for the innocent little fir, and other roles in James Philips' gentle but inventive direction, ideal for its young audiences.

Little Fir Tree/Little Girl: Olivia Darnley
Mother/Young Man/Fairy Queen/Girl/Mouse: Leandra Lawrence
Hare/Rat/Elf Prince/Boy: Cait Davis

Director: James Philips
Designer: David Farley
Lighting: Guy Hoare
Sound: Neil Alexander
Singing Tutor: Richard Stone
Movement/Choreographer: Dominic Leclerc

2004-12-28 00:49:37