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Fringe 2007 Reviews (70)
Little Red Things: The Boy
Who Wouldn't Listen
By the Company
Gomito Productions
Bedlam Theatre
*****
Gomito's Little Red Things is pure magic. With a cast of five,
a pianist, and a seemingly unending collection of blankets, ropes, nets,
and puppets, the company creates a theatrical storybook for the audience's
consumption.
Skillfully weaving classic tropes with a definite sense of the modern,
this production will transport audiences young and old from the mundane
world of bedtimes and libraries to the fantastic forest of inspiration,
as heroine Taylor quests to save the forest from a black swamp that's
slowly killing it off.
While the company's exuberance is infectious, it is their use of puppetry
which gives Gomito a real edge on the competition. Creating tree-men
and giant birds (the latter is a truly spectacular achievement, especially
given the limited materials at hand) in aid of their landscape, Gomito
has created something special with Little Red Things.
Rachel Lynn Brody
The Quest for the Divine Bottle
By Richard Fredman (and Francois Rabalais)
Babolin Theatre in association with Gomito
Devised by the Company
Bedlam Theatre
****(*)
Sharing a production company, a performer, and a considerable number
of design traits with Little Red Things: The Boy Who Would Not Listen,
it's no surprise that Quest is of similar high quality.
The company's fantastical, physical approach has a childlike appeal,
although the content is anything but appropriate for kids (as the shocked
family beside me realized about halfway through the show).
Where Quest loses half a star is for clarity - there were a
couple of points in the latter half of the piece (something about war
and magic cake?) where I had absolutely no idea what was going on. As
much fun as the nonsensical fantastic can be, an inkling of what's going
on can be useful, too.
Clever lyrics and simple guitar accompaniment built the musical side
of this production up, and unlike some large-scale productions by certain
national theatre companies, the chorus seemed in no way shoehorned in.
Rather, the company's performance was flowing and organic, with the
strength of their ensemble evident in every scene change and the movement
of the story.
Rachel Lynn Brody
The Matrix: The Pantomime
Two Shades of Blue
Augustine's
**
Sometimes shows are so bad they're good. Other times they're so bad
they're…well, not quite good, but not quite horrific. The Matrix:
The Pantomime falls into this category. Although the script is clever
(and chock full of terrible jokes), one can never quite determine if
the performers are acting so badly on purpose, or just because they
can't do any better.
Rachel Lynn Brody
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