THEATRE
Filmed at La Mama Courthouse on 15 July 2021, streamed on Vimeo
Reviewer: Kate Herbert viewed on 2 August 2021
Stars: ***
This review is published only on this blog. KH
The Mermaid, Allegra di Lollo- pic Pier Carthew
If you merge Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of The Little Mermaid with a smattering of myths and sightings of mer-people, then pop them in a blender with lots of teen angst, you come up with The Mermaid.
Directed by Cassandra Fumi, this devised production is a Youth Theatre performance (i.e. performed by young people and created with professionals) that took three years to develop.
The ensemble of nine actors aged from 12 to 19 perform this piece. It is episodic with some scenes that are movement-based, and others that rely on narration delivered on microphone by various cast members.
It opens with one defiant, young, trans actor who, as the host, suggests that we are about to enter the Coney Island Mermaid Parade – Yes, it’s a real thing in the US! Regrettably, we never see the Parade or this host character again.
In a confined set (Dann Barber) that is a giant, tiled, empty swimming pool, a girl (Allegra Di Lallo) – the titular mermaid –lies prone in a pink, plastic, paddling pool that has its own tail fin.
The mermaid’s fantasy about leaving her underwater world to live on land, become human and fall in love, is an allegory for a teenager growing to maturity, craving freedom to make her own choices and live her own life, but not coping with that reality.
Reviewing Youth Theatre is always fraught because it cannot be criticised in the same way as a professional production. Nonetheless, this show is included on the VCE Drama Studies Play List and is being studied as a piece of live theatre by Victorian VCE students, so must be reviewed.
The Mermaid - pic Pier Carthew
The script focuses on mermaids having been criticised, mythologised, demeaned, caricatured and mutilated over the years, in both myth and reality.
The production is a simplified vision of adolescent concerns, but the social and personal commentary is often simplistic and a little laboured. This performance probably will not challenge Year 12 students, nor will it provide a high-quality theatrical production for them to study, apart from the set design.
One interesting element is the analogy with our obsession with ‘beauty’, with changing oneself for public approval or that of a partner i.e. the Prince. The Mermaid sacrifices her voice to have legs because it makes her more beautiful to humans, more acceptable and, she dreams, more lovable.
Cosmetic surgery to re-create oneself is not empowering, it is mutilation – although this is intimated rather that stated clearly in this production. Now, that would be an interesting road to go down in this script.
The most powerful moment is the image of the tiny, mute child version of the Mermaid, struggling to be heard, now that she has lost her voice.
The Mermaid is an interesting work devised with young people, but it demands more rigour and complexity if it is to challenge the issues with which it deals.
By Kate Herbert
Director: Cassandra Fumi
Artistic Associate: Tennessee Mynott-Rudland
Devised with and performed by:
Allegra Di Lallo as The Mermaid
An Dang & Ella Simons as The Sisters
Theo Boltman as Mermaid/Eel
Casper Plum as The Prince
Flora Feldman as The Sea Witch / Mermaid
Marshall Morgan as Flounder
Asha Randall-Sheppard as a Shark
Frankie Willcox as The Sea King
Creative Team:
Set and Costume Designer: Dann Barber
Set and Costume Secondment: Savanna Wegman
Lighting Designer: Rachel Burke
Music: Christopher Bolton, Bee Montagner & Ivy Luo
Sound Design: Bee Montagner
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