Low Down

Aesop was born into slavery around 620BC. Leon Conrad tells some of his best-loved fables, interspersed with the story of Aesop's own life, in an engaging our of story-theatre-performance.

Review

Aesop's own life is a story that is far, far less known that his fables. A performance poet and storyteller, Leon Conrad brings Aesop to life,and they key figures in his biography, with an ease that belies the difficulty of sustaining over an hour of theatre, comedy, poetry and storytelling. We discover that Aesop was born into slavery and that, throughout his life, he is a free spirit, neither bound by chains nor physical disability.

As storytelling it is a masterclass. As children's theatre is works less well. It certainly is a show for older children with a good attention span. We hear a lot of words, skilfully crafted and delivered by Conrad. There is a lightness of touch in the direction of this production, which allows Conrad to create scenes with simple movement, gesture and variations in his vocal delivery. The first half of the performance works particularly well as we are introduced to Aesop and his world. Scenes change quickly, there's a lot of humour and quick wit. Later, there is more focus on his personal story and the surrounding history and the fables and his more personal tale become a little lost in so much content. It becomes a phase in the performance where the younger children in my audience began to fidget, though, without a doubt, the adults were enraptured throughout. Had this been billed as an adult piece of theatre to which some parents might have brought older children along, it might have held the audience to the very end.

Conrad steps through scenes with such natural flair for the craft, that one is drawn into the scenes through his charisma alone. As he delivers some splendily written poetry, filled with wit, humour, rhyme and rhythmn, we suddenly find ourselves stepping with him into one of Aesop's fables, and we are invited to be "free" as well to make of them what we wish. He offers them up to us, as a gift. These gifts from Aesop are timeless and Conrad's show locates them in a fascinating historical landscape. There's a warmth to the piece that never falls into sentimentalism.

Nicky Heinen's flute music weaves well around the scenes, and Paul Batten's Lighting demonstrates how less can be more; the lighting is simply yet evocative and supportive of the piece - very much part of the magic of the performance.

The second half of the performance is too dense, needs attention, as the piece plateaus in terms of energy and narrative. With some attention given to that, this has the makings of something unique - a piece of storytelling that would work equally well as excellent theatre. It is certainly well on the way!

Reviewed by PL 23rd August 2008

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