Sunday 22 November 2015

Mwathirika

threeweeks.co.uk
My last trip to the Fringe in 2011 took me to an incense-infused-caravan, with pillows as seating, to a performance by The River People with some of the most captivating puppetry I'd ever seen. I'd never really cared for shows about puppets but their performance of Little Matter opened my eyes to just how magical it can be. The storytelling really spoke to me and it remains one of the greatest theatre productions I think I've seen.

threeweeks.co.uk

Little Matter's magic then took me to the Little Angel Theatre in East London where I found puppetry tackling stories of the holocaust (Buttons) and of a charming relationship between man, woman and fish, accompanied by the diagnosis and subsequent journey of discovery brought by Motor-neurone disease (Cell) - also at this year's fringe.

This year, I was back in Edinburgh again and I quickly sought out my next magical puppetry experience - I found it at C Nova.



aroundyou.com.au
'Mwathirika', (meaning 'victim') was marketed as an Indonesian puppet show following two village families during the Indonesian genocide, in association with the British Council. It was the first time I'd seen child puppets and they got the physicality just right. Immediately some kind of maternal instinct kicked in as I watched the relationship between two young brothers fluctuate between self-pitying tantrums and complete idolisation in mere moments. With no dialogue to drive the story, all eyes were drawn to navigating our own individual journeys through the performance and these boys were central to it. You can't help but be charmed by the childish laughter and playful skipping of main character 

theaustralian.com.au


We watch as a nation is ripped apart and friends are isolated by an unjust regime. Children lose a father. A father shows his love for his daughter. Soldiers play the puppeteers of a nation as they themselves are puppets to a regime. A girl tries to help a friend and a boy is left alone.

heraldscotland.com



The Indonesian theatre company had mastered puppetry, with vocalisations of excitement and child's play spot on, as they even operated puppets with their toes.! I was transported. I was there with them. My heart wrenched for them. During the show the boys' father is arrested under the regime and they are left alone. At this point the pain that they feel is thrust into the hearts and minds of the captured audience. As they shiver, starve and cry, lose all hope - every ounce of humanity in you is reaching forward as if to scoop them up. It continues scene after scene, aided by projections of an endless tally chart and the execution of less animated movement, prolonging the feeling of an eternity of suffering. 

theaustralian.com.au
As the youngest child is left alone, the young girl from next door makes touching attempts to cheer him up as she wheels over in her wheelchair and gives him her music box. This was another first for me, seeing a puppet in a wheelchair and not thinking twice about it because it was choreographed so superbly. There were moments of audience participation, of light and dark and of a fairytale filled with hardship, loss, love and and friendship and it was captivating to watch the wooden puppets come alive as children. 

The performance almost had a heartbeat of it's own, you could tell the puppeteers were invested in their story and why not. I feel drawn to learn about Indonesian culture in a way I haven't been since the magnificent documentary 'The Missing Picture'.




I think you can tell, I was suitably impressed and for one evening of an unbelievably busy week, whilst my friends were off drinking, I found myself transported deep into the beautiful heart of an injured Indonesia and found triumph in facing it head on. I even got to get acquainted with one of teh characters!

The Fringe did it again, it holds the gold medal for puppetry for 2015 and I can't wait to see what it has in store for me next year! 

Follow Papermoon Puppet Theatre's work here: http://www.papermoonpuppet.com/

Saturday 21 November 2015

Reclaiming Vietnam

By this point in the week I was more than a little worse for wear, speed napping whenever I found myself in low light. It was in this tragic state that I accidentally stumbled into Reclaiming Vietnam and happened across my second one woman show of the week.

Bacchic - windsorexpress.co.uk
The first one woman show I ever saw was 'Bacchic' back in May 2008, and although it boasted aerial acrobatics - I was not a fan of the Euripides-based story (nor can I even remember it). This time, I had allowed myself to be more open. Kim Chinh's story was different, she was about to express her own autobiographical story.

As is common at the Fringe you find yourself with tickets to shows you have heard nothing about. You have no idea of what to expect and only have the title of the piece to guide you in your estimations. I had expected to be met with a journey through Vietnam, to learn about the war and to see how it had injured its people. Instead I was thrust into the world of an American and her extended family. Not what I had expected but I ran with it.

edinburghfestival.list.co.uk
Kim began with telling us what she thought about Vietnam and how she dislikes being called Vietnamese. She calls Vietnam backwards, claiming 'I am American' - almost undermining her journey towards loving it before it even really begins. It meant I wasn't really sympathetic with her from the outset, I was annoyed by her for a bit. Why does she hate being Vietnamese? But what was unclear and a little annoying at the beginning did slowly begin to make sense as the piece continued.

It was a piece less about reclaiming her heritage, than forgiving her own family for abusing her trust. She enacts in depth her encounters with three of her cousins as she faces them and tells them that she remembers what they did - they had abused her and molested her and she wanted them to know she had not forgotten. It suddenly became a very personal journey across a backdrop that provided the distractions of war and worry, allowing her childhood abuse to go unnoticed.


reclaimingvietnam.com
I do still struggle with solo shows, interactions with others is part of human nature and body language suggests more about these journeys than a single person can ever give on their own. It was also a little disconcerting to see her confronting her past, but not really confronting her past. It was almost her having discussions with herself in the mirror, rather than her facing up to the men who had betrayed her trust. But then simultaneously, for those more intimate family moments I almost understood it - how can you possibly reenact those intricate and fragile moments of confrontation? I do however, feel it would have been beneficial to share her journey through Vietnam with her travelling partner in the flesh and allow us a break in a rather challenging journey.

reclaimingvietnam.com

The one thing the show achieved was that it did not paint our protagonist as a victim, she was self-aware and looking for answers and at no point did we blame Kim for her past - as is common in cases of abuse. But sometimes this almost worked against her, she would take us back to those moments of fun and lightness. She was dealing with the heavy bits and then distracting us, which perhaps has been the way she herself has moved on from it leaving you to question whether or not she has totally dealt with it or not. But this is less the question I left asking myself. The show was just a little misleading. It led us down the alley of discovery in Vietnam but was cloaked in another story of healing, leaving the Vietnam part, a little unresolved for me.


edinburghfestival.list.co.uk
Much of the piece was mimed. The motorbike Kim sped through Vietnam on, the phone she would call her cousins with, and so on. I'm almost sure that this was due to the artist having a small budget (I mean she'd already flown over from the US for us). But I think that solo shows need that extra aesthetic. I always certainly feel as though I need more to make up for the lack of other actors onstage. The show would certainly benefit from that when touring again.


Perhaps what makes the piece is the fact that the story is true, which perhaps suppresses our verdict as critics and instead opens our hearts to the human at the core of the piece. Not only is it extremely brave, but extremely affecting too, encouraging us to confront our demons and make peace with those things holding us back. Kim grasps her own truths and thrusts them in front of a public audience bearing all for us to judge. As a solo show, it offers a unique portrayal of a woman that has felt alone in her struggle for a long time, as well as offering up her strength in confronting it. Kim is certainly an inspiring woman and despite the reservations I had about the piece, that was the one thing I could not fault.

Kim spoke about her piece to blogger Gareth Vile here: http://vilearts.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/kim-chinh-talks-dramaturgy-reclaiming.html