Low Down
A powerful play that movingly evokes the horrors and futility of war. If you like puppet theatre, go and see it; if you don’t like puppet theatre, go and see it anyway.
Review
From the moment the familiar rhythmic sounds of a train open the show and tiny puppets stare out of train windows on their endless journey across Russia, Tbilisi Marionette State Theatre captivates its audience with this exquisite world in miniature.
The Battle of Stalingrad, one of the bloodiest battles in history, took place in 1942, claiming one and a half million lives. So great was the scale of the slaughter that it was thought to be the war that would end all wars. Some years ago, director, Rezo Gabriadze, came across an image of a horse on three legs that imprinted itself in his mind and became the impetus for this powerful play.
The puppets themselves and their tiny props - bicycles, pylons, a cigarette - are a delight, intricately crafted and wonderfully innovative. The puppeteers manage their puppets with incredible skill, performing delicate tasks and summoning up powerful emotions.
They create a wealth of ordinary lives precipitately interrupted by war, which includes two love-struck horses and even tiny ants caught up in the human devastation. Generally the puppeteers are unobtrusive presences but occasionally intervene to remind you of the human scale of the tragedy: there is a stunning moment when a puppeteer puts down her ring to wash the dishes, a giant presence in a tiny doll’s house set.
It is well seen that Rezo Gabriadze was a filmmaker; his mastery of the visual aesthetic is consummate. A couple stands at the back of the set and when the man dies he floats back, finally disappearing into a relentless black void. A gold wire plane glints and shimmers in the sun, then breaks apart and drops to the ground in endless free fall. Initially, a puppet play about carnage on a monumental scale might seem an unlikely undertaking, but the brutal destruction of this painstakingly created world proves otherwise. When the puppeteers lay down their puppets and all that is left on the stage is a corpse-like mound of white dust, we mourn for this lost world.
Reviewed by Clare Simpson 06/08/07
