Review: A Curious Zoo
A Curious Zoo
A House Near Victoria Park
Saturday 15th December 2012
With her latest dramatic endeavour, performer and director Caroline Sabin has gone personal. Because in order to end the year with the most creative of flourishes, she has given over her terraced house in the name of theatrical entertainment. Five creatures, a wolf finger puppet, crackling fires, mince pies and bells and whistles? The domiciliary sacrifice paid off; A Curious Zoo is a masterstroke of ingenuity and an experience to savour.
The Canton home was lovingly dusted in fake snow and following my own wet trek from work in Cardiff Bay, its meticulously decorated inside was an oasis of warmth. Trapped within a room of their own, each intriguing character had ten minutes to show glimpses of their world, their views and their past. The cast delivered individual, self-scripted pieces and the sense of their isolation was almost overwhelming; yet the common threads of storytelling, nostalgia and wintry yearning connected the creatures allegorically while the physical proximity of the rooms meant sounds drifted around the house to connect the work as whole.
The Owl, played by a mildly menacing Jon Gower, pointed talons at his prey before he spread his wings and soared away over the tundra of his mind. Musical director and composer James Williams was the harmonium playing Faun whose Inuit inspired tales and gentle wit couldn't conceal an inherent melancholy; his eyes gleamed with a need to escape. Deborah Light was quite literally fenced into the frosty conservatory, playing the both friendly and frenzied Polar Bear Mother, roaring and rolling just feet away from her cub, Rowan Cysewski Light, presumably in his dbut performance.
While Caroline Sabin played a dancing Angel who floated between rooms and orchestrated the audience’s movement, Gerald Tyler delighted as the hands-on, toy recycling Goat, stuck in his craft shed with beer and a screwdriver. Certain merged models, such as what seemed to be Obama’s head attached to a plastic poodle, were works of genius and his critique of reindeers and the modern doll brought genuine guffaws.
The intimate nature of the piece could have led to audience discomfort but the fascinating character snapshots and underlying warmth gave this innovative performance a heart to beat through the frost. As the creatures came together to perform the closing number before the fire, an hour of theatrical magic closed with a twinkle. Intensely imaginative and curiously cosy, this was one zoo that I didn't want to leave.
The Curious Zoo is open until Saturday 22nd December 2012. For tickets, see www.chapter.org
Info Sport & Leisure Performing Arts Acting, Drama and Theatre
IMAGES: Nigel Pugh./ digitalartistNP (NSPugh)
