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| Wow - does that look like a giant shoe to you too? Was that intentional?? |
I heard a lot of great things about the design, less so about the production itself unfortunately. I wish I could find some better sources to cite some different views from but here's the best I found:There is a great deal to charm here, especially in Su Blackwell's cutout paper designs, which conjure fairytale forests and winking houses. The comedy is good, too, particularly in a scene in which Gerda encounters a Hooray Henry wedding party. But the show is often at its best when it sticks closely to Andersen's original rather than veering off into a story of the changing seasons at war with each other; and although Natascha Metherell's production has its moments of frosty magic, it doesn't quite generate the emotional power that it should.
Here, the story of a young girl, Gerda, and her quest to save her friend Cei from the clutches of the evil Snow Queen, who plans to cloak the world in a perpetual winter, plays out on an attractive set by Su Blackwell, an artist making a first, distinguished foray into theatre design with this production. Each stage of Gerda’s journey through the seasons has a very particular look and tone, the mood enhanced by excellent music composed by Alex Silverman, with fiddle, accordion and guitar giving the production a beguiling folk spirit.
A standout sequence transports Gerda through the ice to arrive at the cottage of the sorceress Mrs D, the first of the transformative encounters on her quest. The most surprising episode moves us into a world of gap-year toffs and teen-speak: it breaks the mood, but features a very funny performance from Sian Robins-Grace as a decidedly modern teen princess.
...Overall, The Snow Queen skirts deep enchantment in this incarnation. But it’s a classy and enjoyable production that offers many delights.
The set alone is a source of wonder. Paper artist, Su Blackwell, in her first design project for the stage has created a delicate, wintry world of trees, cottages and lampposts that appear to have been snipped from the pages of a paperback. Black lettering nests against white, making an apt and charming backdrop for Charles Way’s adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairy story.Young Gerda is a nervy girl, prone to panic attacks and terrified of her bad-tempered schoolmaster father, Mr Overskou. When her classmates take turns to dance in front of one another, she can’t bring herself to join in and her best friend Cei has to calm her down. Though Cei and Gerda have been friends and playmates all their lives, Mr Overskou disapproves of the boy’s dreamy ways and forbids them to see one another; it is then that Cei falls under the Snow Queen’s spell. A shard of mirror pierces his heart and he becomes cold and cruel before being whisked off to the Queen’s winter palace and forced to piece together the shattered fragments of her magic mirror. But though the townspeople believe Cei to have drowned, Gerda refuses to accept this and sets off to find him.
If anything Natascha Metherell’s production is too gentle and sedate....What’s missing, despite all its considerable polish, is any real emotional tug or genuine sense of peril; it’s all a little too neat and tidy and lacks the wild fringes of the best children’s theatre.
There are many elements of The Snow Queen that I found deeply compelling. I was drawn to the incredible landscapes where the story takes place. We travel from a tiny rose garden, all the way to the snow queen palace at the North Pole, surrounded by the Northern Lights. This captured my imagination. I was also really moved by Hans Christian Andersen’s life story. He was told by his mother, after his father died, that the Snow Queen had taken his father away. Later in his life, he created a story of two best friends who are separated by The Snow Queen. We watch as little Gerda, through her blind faith and deep devotion, is able to find Kai at the end of the earth, and save his life. I think there is a deep message in this show, embedded in a fantastical and spectacular world.
My vision for this production was inspired by the experience of listening to a story, and allowing it to transform the world around you. The show begins in a magical attic where a group of children have gathered to hear a story. As the story unfolds, beds become snow drifts, sheets become blizzards, a wagon becomes the boat. The world around you transforms into the locations and characters of the story. The audience is integral to the show. When you arrive, you create a paper rose and a snow flake, and are asked to help Gerda along the way using these elements.The production was staged by Bonstelle Theater (Wayne State University's Undergraduate Theater Company) in December 2012. There are tons more photos if you follow the links.
