Review
PINOCCHIO
The Old Trout Puppet Workshop
Presented by Alberta Theatre Projects
Performed by the Old Trout Puppet Workshop
with Doug McKeag and Jocelyn Ahlf
Adapted by the Old Trouts and Vanessa Porteous
Directed by Vanessa Porteous
Runs until December 27
Martha Cohen Theatre (Epcor Centre)
If Walt Disney eviscerated fairy tales, the Old Trouts stuff the guts back in.
The Old Trout Puppet Workshop’s dark new version of Pinocchio for Alberta Theatre Projects restores the macabre innards of the original Carlo Collodi story, while at the same time boiling it down to its most basic, mythic elements, as is this troupe’s wont.
Collodi’s episodic children’s novel may be a variant on the parable of the prodigal son, but Collodi dressed it up with slapstick humour and picaresque adventures that kids still enjoy. Scraps of that colourful garb remain in this adaptation (by the Trouts in collaboration with director Vanessa Porteous), but its suggested symbolism is left clearly exposed. Geppetto, the puppet’s maker, is his father; the ethereal Blue Fairy is his mother figure (and, in a real Freudian nightmare, dies because Pinocchio abandons her); and Pinocchio himself is the imperfect soul who is more than mere senseless marionette, but must embark on a quest of self-discovery in order to transcend his wooden origins and become a real boy. Joseph Campbell would’ve loved this show.
Happily, for those either too young or too old to care about symbol and allegory, the Trouts have also crafted a clever and imaginative entertainment, involving puppets of all sizes, human actors, a set like a giant pop-up book, old-fashioned theatrical effects and a live score.
The Trouts’ Pinocchio, sporting one of their trademark trout-pout faces and a Punch-style fool’s cap, is less of a lively scapegrace and more of a sad-looking, creaky-voiced little fellow who speaks in a ragú of Italian and gibberish, spiced with the odd English word. (And it’s an odd little conceit – the other characters only speak English.) If Collodi’s Pinocchio was a prey to temptation, the Trouts’ character is more sinned against than sinning. When he is fleeced by the two cunning thieves (who appear here, not as a fox and cat, but as a pair of bowler-hatted old men in a Beckettian landscape), you actually feel sorry for the poor little guy’s eager naiveté.
The Trouts and Porteous take a few other liberties with the book, but stick close to the original plot and restore some of the bitter flavour that Walt’s gang sugar-coated (e.g., there’s no sage cricket sidekick for this Pinocchio who, like Collodi’s, applies a hammer to his annoying insect "conscience" right off the top).
Actor-singers Doug McKeag and Jocelyn Ahlf are the token human stars in the Trouts’ puppet cast, the former as a gentle, white-bearded Geppetto who looks like one of Tolkien’s Middle-earth dwellers, the latter as an operatic Blue Fairy who resembles Elizabeth I. (Yes, the fairy is played by an Ahlf.) They are joined by the five Trout men – Peter Balkwill, Bobby Hall, Steve Kenderes, Judd Palmer and Stephen Pearce – as the eponymous hero and a slew of other puppets, including marionette and hand versions as well as those signature helmet puppets they wear on their heads. The grave gorilla magistrate and his chattering monkey colleagues who preside over Pinocchio’s trial are a particular hit (the court’s bailiff is a mastiff), while the whale that swallows Geppetto and Pinocchio could have swum straight off the sketchpad of Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam. And, in another whiff of symbolism (which recalls the Trouts’ previous show, the adult Last Supper of Antonin Carême), Fire-eater, the irascible puppetmaster, appears as an Old Testament Jehovah.
Unlike their adult shows, Pinocchio has dialogue – making it more conventional, perhaps, but also comprehensible – and jettisons the complex soundscape in favour of accompanying mood music composed and played by David Rhymer (piano) and Jonathan Lewis (violin and woodwinds), with Trout Balkwill continually scurrying between stage and pit to supply some percussion.
ATP director Porteous, meanwhile, supplies the pacing that was lacking in Antonin Carême. And the company’s Martha Cohen stage has allowed the Trouts to spread out and go for a deluxe set design, dominated by two rows of wooden gothic arches crowned by clouds, which serve as forest and town and, in a touch of theatre magic, are finally set in rhythmic motion to indicate the ribcage of the breathing whale.
Not everything in this production is successful, but the Trouts have a way of getting back to the dark, primeval roots of fairy tales that’s a welcome change from the Disney versions. |
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