Peter and the Wolf. A children's puppetry entertainment written by Wayne Shepherd and actors, incorporating the music by Sergei Prokofiev. Ickle Pickle Productions, directed by Wayne Shepherd at Belconnen Community Theatre January 15 - 7pm, 16 - 2pm, 17 - 2pm, 20 - 2pm, 21 - 11am, 22 - 11am & 2pm, 23 - 2pm & 7pm, 24 - 2pm, 27 - 11am, 28 - 11am. Duration: 1 hour. Bookings: 6262 6977 or www.icklepickle.com.au
This is light entertainment of a rather odd kind, but enjoyed by an opening night audience ranging from toddlers to grandparents. The actors' ages range from 11 to adult, all with considerable amateur experience. In other words this is community theatre designed to be fun as much for those on stage as for the audience. Enthusiasm and warmth of relationship is the key to this kind of theatre, and Ickle Pickle manage very well.
Detailed criticism of individual performers is not appropriate here, but it is fair to say that I was surprised at the level of confidence and initiative the younger actors showed, as well as at the quality of voice projection. The Belconnen Theatre is not good acoustically, but I could hear every speaker very well from near the back row.
Shepherd structured the entertainment around a gently satirical version of a primary school assembly, where it was class 4M's turn to put on items for the school and parents. This involved audience participation - we had to sing a verse of Advance Australia Fair - and were taught the ra-ra chants of our Houses. The presentation was about the history of puppetry from around the world, with examples from Punch and Judy, shadow puppetry, Sesame Street figures as large hand puppets, and finally Peter and the Wolf with a narrator who became somewhat entangled in the action and the characters represented in various forms as costumed actors, string puppets with operators in blacks and unusual integrated actor/puppets.
Primary school level jokes are an integral part of the show, culminating in a restaurant scene in which the Sesame Street puppets find flies, bees, cockroaches and a number of other unmentionables in their soup, all explained away cheerfully by a French waiter. Written by Shepherd while teaching in China, I found this almost seriously absurdist. He claims it was very popular in China, probably I guess because the awful puns were a fun way to learn English. Just as this show overall is a fun way to learn about puppets.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
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