Manipulate
And then he ate me..., Traverse, Edinburgh
Mary Brennan
FIVE STARS
Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? It seems no-one is nowadays. Mankind is more than capable of frightening himself. So our Wolf howls, and he rants. Rails at Rabbit (a deadpan Jose Lopez is the much-chivvied gofer who's always running late). Turns mournful, seeks our pity. Then snarls defiance, because he is still the Wolf and given half a chance he'd eat us up too, if we were as desirable a morsel as Christine, she of the red dress and the fairytale. Or was that Alice? Her wonderland is part of the fantastical realm you can only enter when you open a book, and this exquisite, multi-layered production is an evocation of the old truths, the whispered warnings and the tantalising-scary allure of what lies between the covers of such classic childhood story-books.
Look - there's the little house that always seems to lie at the heart of the dark pine forest. The Wolf knows that house. Red Riding Hood lived there, or was it her Grandmother? Or the wisest of the three little pigs? The imagery that Velo Theatre (France) bring to the stage - a tiny paper house, Rabbit's ever-larger pocket watches, a door-within-a-door - acts as a key to the complex strands that make "once upon a time..." a portal into our very psyche, a reminder of the primal fears that still condition us. Charlot Lemoine as Wolf is a delicious mix of petulant child, swaggering lothario and grandiose, old-school thespian - no wonder an elderly Christine (Tania Castaing) dimples at memories of their encounters. It's one of those cunningly profound shows you want to feast on, again and again. Sadly, it's gone.
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