HOME
Written & Directed by Suzanne Andrade
Film & Animation by Paul Barritt
Music by Lillian Henley
There is nothing remotely “little” about the technical skill and artistic merit of what 1927 call “our little show”. The Animals and Children took to the Streets is a dark, cautionary tale cleverly combining story-telling with animation, performance and live music in an almost magically seamless manner. Performers and animated children and animals blend together to create a visual theatrical spectacle that is part graphic novel/part Pop-Up or Lift the flap children’s book.
The inhabitants of The Bayou Mansions on Red Herring Street are a disparate bunch of dissolute characters ranging from a man living with his horse, to another who sniffs women’s bicycle seats, to a 21 year old granny and pirate Zelda who leads one of the many gangs of children roaming the neighbourhood. Into the mix comes the pure hearted Agnes who arrives with her sweet little daughter Evie; hoping to save the local children with love and découpage. This naivety to the scale of the problem of children reared on vodka, borscht and tears ensures there will be no fairy tale ending to this particular story.
The story here is simple, but its brilliance lies in the stylistic delivery and the visual feast created by Paul Barritt’s film and animation coupled with the three performers’ seamless interactions with the animated characters. The audience appear spellbound by this picturebook story just as children might listening to The Pied Piper of Hamlin. In this instance the children are lured away by a sinister ice cream van and Granny’s Gumdrops which are a chemical cosh akin to a hefty dose of Ritalin.
Performers Felicity Sparks, Genevieve Dunne and Rowena Lennon each play a range of characters that they bring vividly to life. Despite the period look stylistically, there is a very current feel to this show that does not need to mention Grenfall Towers. The colour palette and use of live music creates the feel of an old silent movie. The delivery of the local characters is filled with acerbic wit and drips with the acidic knowledge that if you’re born in the Bayou, you’ll die here. Agnes Eaves radiates a hopeful innocence and then a growing terror that is reminiscent of Clara Bow while the mournful delivery and physical performance of The Caretaker evokes something very Chaplinesque.
This is an ambitious and assured production that hits all the right notes on the plink plonk piano in that window in The Bayou. It perfectly highlights the inherent unfairness of a Society where the odds are always stacked against the poor and the dispossessed. It is darkly subversive and yet it has warmth and charm as it also shines with the compassion and humour of humanity still present despite such a bleak environment.
1927 are an Associate Company of HOME
All images by 1927
Live Art Alive 