Reviews

The Table

The
Table
is a show in three parts, each one involving a different kind of puppetry. The first, and most
affecting, of the triptych involves a filthy-mouthed bunraku-style
puppet undergoing an existential crisis. He’s planning on presenting
a show about the last 12 hours of the life of Moses, but somehow
can’t get started. The three puppeteers who control him are not
concealed in any way – he introduces them, in fact, explaining who
does what and how in terms of his movements – yet this little
figure appears to possess greater independence and humanity than a
lot of the characters you’ll see elsewhere at the Fringe this year.

Next
up a bodiless troupe of masks and ghostly hands dance in darkness.
It’s hypnotic stuff and, despite being the least innovative element
of the show, provides a nice interlude between the dark humour of
the first and final parts.

The
show rounds off with an extremely clever piece that is part live
cartoon strip and part choreographed flipbook, all performed to
a surging score by Elgar. The company produce drawing after drawing –
what seems like an entire ream of paper – from a nondescript
briefcase set on the table before them, telling the story of a unfortunate character
whose day just goes from bad to worse. It is a huge achievement in
understated and imaginative storytelling.

The
Fringe is by no means a stranger to puppetry these days: the art form
appears in shows for adults and children, across all the genres in
the programme. Rarely, however, is it presented for its own sake, and as delightfully as this.