Paul Barritt – Live Art Alive

Created by 1927

Writer and Director Suzanne Andrade

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Trips to The British Library to explore the Aarne index of folktales from around the globe as Suzanne Andrade sought out appropriate tales for 1927 resulted in a big friends and family get together over a vat of Irish stew in a snow storm. The outcome is ROOTS, a hotchpotch of vivid, quirky tales told using the 1927 trademark blend of animation, performers and musicians. As we prepare to leave Europe this rich tapestry of interwoven tales showcases the power of storytelling as a universal medium to unite us all. Folktales have always morphed and mutated as they weave around the globe and with ROOTS this magic continues with an accompanying visual and musical feast.

This bakers dozen are not clean cut or a cohesive illustration of a particular theme such as those approached by Italo Calvino or Angela Carter. Instead they revel in being a splatter fest of the dark, the peculiar and downright odd. A Fat Cat is a tale of epic consumerism where puss systematically eats the world, pausing only to barf up a schoolboy’s scabs and a world leader’s toupee! Elsewhere a genitally blessed king seeks a bride without a domineering will of her own, while in Two Fish parents kill their child in the misguided hope of acquiring a third fish. In the delightfully whimsical An Ant found a penny, a beatnik French ant honeymoons in The Orkneys before her world implodes from a traumatic event involving a pot of stew.

As with all 1927 productions the animation and film by Paul Barritt looks wonderful whether as minimalist black and white or the psychedelic landscape of Snake or the absinthe green tinged The Luckless Man. Performers pop up through hinged windows in the screen bringing 3D to the animations, musicians gain angel wings just as the animated fat cat ascends to heaven…every tiny whimsical detail is utilised and luxuriated in. In The Magic Bird layers of detail create a Punch and Judy aspect to a couples murderous, greedy squabbles. The costumes, make up and music all combine to give this production a real world flavour from Parisien ants to Mexican Day of The Dead horse heads in Alonso and the Ogre and the rich earthy African tone of Snake.

The tales are darkly comic and often violent with witty current references all told in a very naturalistic manner by non professionals. This madcap cluster of tales are weirdly mesmerising and totally engrossing.

HOME 11DEC – 30TH DEC 2019

1927

Images by Gaelle Beri

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.

HOME 6th- 16th February

1927 are an Associate Company of HOME

1927

All images by 1927