All too soon, it seems, Imaginate is over for another year.
Not that the audiences who engaged with this year's programme of theatre for children and young people are likely to forget their experiences, particularly if they entered into the dark mindset, and even darker labyrinth of h.g. (HHHH). This eerie, unsettling promenade through the stuff of nightmares was installed at the little studio in the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art by Trickster (Switzerland) who lived up to that name with an unexpected twist on Grimm's Hansel and Gretel.
Shoes off, torch in hand, you step one by one into darkness. A woman's voice whispers through headphones, and it's her remembered ordeal, criss-crossing with that of the lost, abandoned children, that leads you through a network of pitch dark cubicles. Sounds, smells, and objects – including tiny bones arranged in the shapes of trees and children – hint at a dread and violent reality beyond fiction. Is the final installation, a crime scene outline of a body and a glass cabinet with charred remains, how she escaped from un-named terrors? Children (aged nine +) and adults fill in details from their own imaginings, then pull on their shoes and prepare to step into the light again. Ouch! A wee stone in one shoe is the jolt that caps this subtly haunting, beautifully contrived reminder that not every child's life had a happy ending.
There could have been a similar shadow hovering over Mikey and Addie (HHHH) at the Traverse. But director Andy Manley and writer Rob Evans steer this tremendous rollercoaster about the perils of telling lies, and indeed truths, towards a turning point of self-knowledge. This shining bright moment is dazzlingly reflected by Shona Reppe's design suddenly glowing like a starry constellation. Young audiences (nine + age group) will surely have recognised the know-it-all Addie of Sally Reid: the bossy-boots playground monitor who frankly has no people skills. Reid has her to the very stomp of her brisk heels. Mikey is the lone-parent lad who insists his absent father is a spaceman and builds his whole life, his bedroom decor, around that illusion. Michael Dylan is so spot-on as Mikey, it hurts; so chipper and yet so vulnerable, his face collapsing into unsaid grief and bewildered anger when the truth – precipitated by Addie of course – rips apart the fabric of his security. All this is delivered with irresistable humour as well as a perceptive understanding of the issues and choices that are such a confusing part of growing up.
If Mikey and Addie flies the flag for quality Scottish work, so too does Cloudland (HHHH) which utterly charmed audiences (four to seven years) at the Church Hill Theatre Studio. Puppet-maker Ailie Cohen's creation is a joy to behold, not least when parts of a cloud open up to give miniature glimpses of a cloud-life that tempts everyone to look hopefully sky-high afterwards.
The same venue hosted Aston's Stones (HHHH), a deliciously whimsical take on childhood obsessions by Teater Pero (Sweden). Lovely live, jazzy music from three hilariously deadpan performers adds a sophisticated swing to this simple family tale (for three to six years) of a boy who "adopts" lonely stones. Tinies giggled and parents grinned, maybe ruefully.
Kindur (HHH) found Compagnia TP0 (Italy) inviting audiences (six +) to invade the Brunton Theatre stage for an interactive dance piece that used techno-whizz wizardry to explore Iceland as experienced by its sheep.
Visually inventive and a-whoosh with effects, including light-up hearts on every audience member, it didn't quite match the hands-on low-tech warmth and magic of Grug (HHH) a puppet-show by Windmill Theatre (Australia) at the Traverse, where the sheer gusto of the performers, and the droll character of the bumbly Grug, had kids (three to six years) mobbing the set afterwards for a photo to remember it by.
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