An Evening of Toy Theatre, Great Small Works, Charlestown Working Theater, 01.03.08

This evening of Toy Theater (composed of a ‘lecture’ on the History of Toy Theater, two pieces of toy theatre and a sing-along with ‘Pirate Jenny’) was a marvel – completely wonderful. In case you haven’t seen a toy theatre, it’s a really small-scale theatre-box in which plays can be performed with mini-puppets. A few thoughts come to mind about particular effects.

The opening ‘lecture’ was extremely entertaining, consisting simply of Dr John Bell singing the words of his lecture to a very basic repeating melody (accompanied by the rest of the cast playing instruments) and pointing to various reproduced images taped to the wall. What was fascinating was the extent to which setting the words to music – music which didn’t at all ‘fit’ the words, which often overran the melodic line and altered natural spoken rhythms – made the performance compelling. This piece of music (I’m sure they won’t mind me saying) was not complex or particularly interesting in itself, and was clearly not made to suit the words being spoken (which themselves were not sung in an especially polished way) but nonetheless made the performance as a whole function extremely well.

How? My best guess at the moment is along these lines: by superimposing a musical structure onto a linguistic structure that doesn’t suit it the listener is forced to try to maintain the peculiarities of each in their mind. We not only have to listen to and recognise the musical structure presented but, as the music messes with the rhythms and intonations of the spoken word, we have to work hard to understand what is being said as well. Thus, the words don’t simply ‘wash over’ us – we work to uncover their meaning and thus they impinge upon our consciousness more dramatically.

Another great effect: in their first Toy Theater piece, ‘Blue Skies’, a tornado was created out of a cone-shaped piece of fabric attached to a hand-drill. The frantic whirling of the tornado made the whole scene shake, and eventually picked up a house! The effect was extremely convincing and demonstrated how much can be achieved due to the miniaturisation of the form: in a full-sized theatre such an effect would be far more difficult to produce, and may have been less powerful, as you would lose a sense of scale that the toy theatre allows you to achieve.

Also, the pieces raised interesting questions about the relationship of live performance to projected image, as here the performance was projected onto a screen above each toy theatre in real-time. Despite having a clear view of the theatre itself, I found myself looking up to the screen and back again, to compare the two experiences offered. I was surprised by how different they were: the slightly unfocused projection lent an air of dreamlike ‘reality’ to the scenes while watching the toy theatre itself allowed one to observe the performers manipulate each object. Often this added to the performance considerably: knowing that the person on stage-right was about to introduce a new character, say, or bring down the curtain infused each scene with a sense of anticipation that would not have been present if the performers were hidden. In addition an appreciation of the extreme skill of these performers added to the power of the piece.

Finally, I found myself convinced by the argument, raised in the preceding ‘lecture’, that the toy theatre mode represents a step away from mass-produced, impersonal art that is made to be consumed. In a surprising parallel to today’s user-created-content the toy theatre represented an opportunity for people to create their own entertainment from basic tools supplied by others, and this message was reinforced in these performances by the simple materials used by the performers to create their remarkable effects.

Go see Great Small Works!