Can You Hear Colour?
Collaboratively created by Naomi Edwards, Alan John, Kathryn Sprout,Ben Flett,Michaela Burger, Bethany Hill and Sally Hardy with Nathan O’Keefe, Tim Overton and Chris Petridis. Directed by Naomi Edwards. Composed by Alan John. Designed by Kathryn Sprout. Patch Theatre. AcArts Main Theatre. Adelaide Festival . March 9-15 2018
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
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| Patch Theatre's Can You Hear Colour. Photo: Paoli Smith | s' |
With its latest production, Can You Hear Colour, Patch Theatre
continues its fine tradition of providing high quality theatre experiences for
very young children. Before the play begins a member of the company talks with
the small children who have been brave enough to leave their parents in the
tiered seating and sit along the front of the stage. In a gentle, friendly voice
she asks “What is your favourite ice-cream flavour?’ and “What is your
favourite colour?” Eager arms shoot into the air.
Suddenly a girl (Michaela Burger)
comes dancing onto the stage, leaping at leaves and listening to them. She has
the gift to hear music in Nature and see colour in Nature. Every leaf she holds
has its own musical sound, and in a world where music is so often a background accompaniment,
the young audience is encouraged to listen for and hear the unique components of music and see colour
without distraction. The children’s eyes sparkle as their vivid imaginations
take flight and Alan John’s composition fills the stage with music and song.
Like every good story, there is
always a problem to be solved. A captor
of colour (Alan John) enters to remove the leaves strewn across the stage and
bottle then in a colourless glass container, while the young girl runs to
rescue them. A dithering, comical figure,
speaking in rearranged sentences, the bumbling villain of the piece is easily
outwitted, but continues his quest to find the Rainbow Bird (a gloriously sung operatic
performance by Bethany Hill). What ensues is the struggle to bring colour back
to the world. And teach the colour captor the beauty of music and colour in his
world.
Like every good story, an You
Hear Colour” ends happily ever after and the girl’s gift restores colour to the
beautiful Rainbow Bird and the man removes his drab colourless clothes to
reveal a rainbow coloured costume beneath. And all delight in the magical world
of colour and music.
Director Naomi Edwards directs
this story with simple, easy charm. There is no high flying technical wizardry,
although there is the magical appearance and disappearance of colour in the
glass jars. There is no evil, terrifying villainy, but only the foolish, silly
collector of colours. There are no complex notions or facts, but only a delight
in the imagination and the love of colour and music in the world around us.
Patch is a company with perfect
understanding and appreciation of its target audience. Burge’s central
character is as innocent and playful and imaginative as her young audience and
adults too can delight in this production’s colour, music and infinite charm.