Caterpillars
By Kallo Collective
Produced by Auckland Live in association with Show Pony
Directed by Thomas Monckton
At the Bruce Mason Centre
Wednesday 15 July – Saturday 18 July, 2015
Performances at 10.30am & 1.00pm
Reviewed by Finn and Lexie Matheson
Published at http://www.theatreview.org.nz
In the car travelling over Auckland Harbour Bridge we talked about what a cool experience seeing shows at the Bruce Mason Centre is and how pleasant the staff always are. We agreed that the last show we actually saw in that venue was ‘The Gruffalo’ and that it was quite a while ago so revisiting would be fun. The publicity for the show said that we would be actually sitting on the stage to view the show and that, we agreed, would be an exciting new experience too.
Having collected our tickets we entered the auditorium which was quite dimly lit and we immediately saw that the promotional material was accurate, that the seating was on the flat area of the stage and that it consisted of attractively coloured deckchairs and loads of beanbags and cushions. There was already a good sized audience in the theatre, mostly bubbly kids many of whom had their faces strikingly adorned with sparkly butterfly motifs created by the face-painters in the foyer. Most of the audience were under-fives while many of the caregivers seemed to be in the grandparent age group which seems the norm for shows pitched, as this one is, at age two and above.
The set consists of three half oval screens covered in a variety of different fabrics, one a sky blue paisley, another yellow with gold stripes and the last a plaid in deep red. It’s simple but effective and we wonder, momentarily, what delights these screens hide.
We don’t have long to wait and the show starts with the sound of objects crashing behind the screens and two black-clad characters appear. They’re simple folk, puppeteers, and at times not very good ones which, of course, the kids love. Don’t get me wrong, they’re intentional buffoons and the things that go wrong are carefully and effectively choreographed to draw excited squeals from the young (and not so young) audience. The two performers are dressed like ninja’s, all in black with hoods, but their baggy shorts give them away as possibly clownish characters and so it transpires they are.
What unfolds is a delicately told, but wordless, narrative based on the life cycle of the butterfly illustrated from start to finish in the most extraordinarily imaginative ways possible. It starts with the actors holding up a scroll and pointing to each of the stages – egg, larvae (caterpillar), pupa (chrysalis) and adult – and turning it into a magical chant. While this is happening we get to know a bit about the puppeteers and we learn that they’re very competitive. The girl (Victoria Abbott) seems the more competent of the two characters and the moustachioed boy (Thomas LaHood) certainly has some very good knock-about comedy in the early part of the show. Giant, colourful poppies are produced and a storm plays havoc with them. The stem of one of the flowers breaks and much laughter is the result as the puppeteers try to re-connect the two wayward pieces.
The competitive nature of each of the characters is further revealed as they each produce a series of eggs of ever increasing size until the eggs completely envelope the actors and we await the inevitable moment when the caterpillars emerge into the world for the very first time.
The girl caterpillar emerges first and the impact is breath-taking. It’s a great costume, short, stubby and green with multiple legs, but the appearance of the boy caterpillar, a lanky, orange, multi-legged specimen, eclipses even this. Together they are fantastical, and quite believable in that their patterns of movement replicate those of real world caterpillars and it’s hard to remember that each has a human being inside.
There is some great business with bumble bees that keep popping – or getting popped – by Mr LaHood and the kids absolutely love the way the caterpillars, and in particular the orange one (Mr LaHood again), eat everything in their path including the giant poppies. It’s a treat, in more ways than one.
In a show riddled with the most creative devices, the notion of using pup tents as caterpillar chrysalises is perhaps the best of all. They replicate perfectly the shape of the real thing and cleverly maintain the size ratio already established for the audience.
Thomas Monkton
Time passes and autumn and winter are beautifully created by Abbott and LaHood using the simplest of devices, a working electric fan, two small, hand held buckets full of paper leaves along with some really effective acting and suddenly, as if without warning, the stage is populated by swirling leaves and winter tents heralding the arrival of two beautiful butterflies, one orange and one blue.
There are many special moments during the fifty minute presentation but none better than when the caterpillars advance, in semi-sinister fashion, on the audience and half the children immediately rise from their cushions and head back a row or two to caregivers on deck chairs. There’s no fear and no tears, just an immediate healthy response, and it’s to the credit of these two excellent performers that there is never a hint of anxiety from any of the kids even in the storm scene, during the emergence of the giant caterpillars and the delectable changes of the seasons. Every moment is sweet, tantalising and elusive and the result is children’s theatre of the very best quality. An example of this essence is in the form of a Miss Three-years-old who, tentative at the beginning, moved to the front of the stage about 20 minutes in, turned to her Mum seated behind her in the darkness, and whispered ‘see, Mum, I’m not scared anymore.’
Thomas LaHood
No surprise then to find that these are two highly trained and richly experienced performers. Victoria Abbott, a graduate of Toi Whakaari, trained in Paris with the master of inventive theatre Philippe Gaulier and at the Corporeal School of Mime in London. She also works as a Clown Doctor in hospitals and it’s hard to imagine any more satisfying work that that. LaHood is a graduate of the prestigious Bonts International Clown School in Ibiza and he also works as a clown doctor at Wellington Public Hospital, perhaps the perfect context for learning how to entertain and amuse children.
Victoria Abbott
The whole shebang is made possible by the genius of director Thomas Monckton, a resident of Paris currently engaged creating cross-genre contemporary theatre and circus as well as touring a number of self-devised international solo and collaborative performances who must have the most fun in the world working on this delightful show with such talented actors.
Cornelia Funke in ‘The Thief Lord’ suggests ‘children are caterpillars and adults are butterflies. No butterfly’, she says, ‘ever remembers what it felt like being a caterpillar’. If you fear that this may be even half true of you, reclaim your childhood innocence with a visit to ‘Caterpillars’. Take a few small relatives, you will never regret it.
dykiegirl 