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The Fisherman & His Wife
- Reviews
 Animations - We were shown a fragment of The Fisherman and His Wife at Visions '94 and were impressed, first because the show looked good: large, sculptured caricatures in natural wood, a revolving stage in the middle with cloth backdrops attached to the frame in the hub of the revolve, a waist-high sheet in the foreground cleverly lit and manipulated to suggest the sea, from which the giant fish, with a grumpy, all-wise face emerged and on which the Fisherman sailed and surfed. Second, the show sounded good, with Rod Burnett and Tanya Landman in full view, singing, speaking, operating the characters from behind. A 20-minute extract conveyed all this, but not much about the treatment of the story and its theatrical effectiveness.
So I went to the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn to see the whole show played to a family audience and I was still very favourably impressed, although my over-riding thought was, 'they take risks these two players.' The pace is slow, perversely slow, and the dialogue and action are repetitive in the way that the chorus and action of many folk songs are retetitive. The acting of the puppets is seriously wooden. The humour is so dry as to be undectable for the first moments - this is a dangerous way to play to children. Yet, because the piece has innate rhythm and dynamic it works dramatically. The children were still through the pauses, though some of the older ones held their heads in despair when the same exchange between the Fisherman and his wife, demanding the world from her rocking chair, was heard for the sixth time. But everyone was smiling and clearly wanted to know what was going to happen next.
Storybox has also made a virtue of loose ends. What happened to the Enchanted Prince who had been turned into a fish? Why did the sea run red with blood every time the Fisherman's wife was granted her greedy wishes for riches and power? What does it mean when you ask to be God (her last request) and you are returned from kingship to poverty, from tyranny to a state of peace and love? In this version the ending was certainly not punishment for greed, as it usually is in the telling of this tale. Rod Burnett, in his mellifluous voice, askes the children all these questions at the end of the show, inviting them to go home and deliverate on them, perhaps to invent a sequel.
The whole show invites questions, but it is original and, yes, entertaining and a visual delight. Landman and Burnett make a fine creative partnershop. Fisherman is one of the best shows currently on the circuit. Try and catch it.
Penny Francis.
Storybox Productions |
