***** (5 stars)
“Magic of the Highest Order!”
Amazing! Such a contrast from yesterday’s show: rows and rows of silent children, utterly gripped by what was unfolding in front of them, wondering what on earth was coming next.
A simple set – three screens surround a low square table which holds an anglepoise-type lamp, a teapot and two mugs. Two people sitting having a drink when suddenly the lamp goes out. They clink their mugs together and it comes on again – but after a few times, the magic stops working and they wonder what to do. Removing the bulb reveals something inside it – when it falls into one of the mugs a tiny person is released and starts to grow. They explore the table-top world on which they find themself, their tiny clogs clicking and clacking across the table, up and along the lamp’s angled arm, and out into the wide world…
This is magic of the highest order, created by a team of three – puppeteers Clara Palau y Herrero and Sarah Chaudon and director/ technician Tobias Tonjes, who between them invite us into a wonderful exploration of the world of shadows. At first the shadows behave as you might expect, mirroring the actions of the person casting the shadow. But then they take off and have a life of their own, making the shadow-caster become the copier of their shadow… how does a spoon become a fish? An aeroplane?
Where do shadows go in the darkness? How does one person interact with one, two, then three shadow people at once? What happens when shadow mugs decide to act by themselves? Watch their acrobatics, see them waltz to the gentle music – aaagh! What’s happening – there’s a hideous sound of breaking crockery…??? When the tea party scenario returns, how can the shadow person drink when there are no shadow mugs?
There’s a wonderful bit where lights themselves take on a life of their own – dancing across the screens, even trapping the actors’ silhouetted heads inside them so that one silhouette at one point swallows the other: but not for long! The two lights play some more and then merge and expand to reveal the table set for tea… the spotlight shrinks till there’s just the mug and the tiny person, who explores the set again before jumping up into the lamp again. Which goes out.
The Tangram Collective have produced a truly wonder-full show exploring how amazing shadows are, which it’s obvious their young audience enjoyed hugely. In the Q&A session at the end some marvellous questions were posed, from which we learned that the show took seven weeks to make, and was based on a lot of deep research into the philosophy of shadows; that it takes several years for children to connect shadows with the objects that make them, seeing them at first as completely separate entities; and that the company has given some 320 performances to date in many European countries – and now in Scotland.
I absolutely loved Shades of Shadows! Alas, this was the last performance – I would have loved to see it again…
Imaginate Children’s Festival presents Tangram Kollektiv: Shades of Shadows Festival Theatre Studio, Edinburgh, RUN ENDED
ScotsGay Arts 