Heidi told by Goats in Greenwich
I went to Greenwich yesterday to see the last performance of Northern Broadsides' adaptation of Johanna Spyri's children's novel Heidi.
The show was a matinee at Greenwich Theatre.
Rebekah Hughes, who is one of the actors represented by the agency that I work for, played Mether, one of the goats, and also composed the music, which was all unaccompanied singing and was lovely.
The premise for the show was this:
Four rather badly-behaved goats were tended by a young girl, who was reading the novel Heidi. Unfortunately, the novel wasn't in very good condition and the pages fell out. The goats were locked in their stable for a couple of days over Christmas, and ate all the pages of the novel.
Rather to their surprise, the story found its way out of their mouths - instead of just bleating, as they'd been doing up till now, they started telling the story of Heidi, and playing all the different characters in the story. The girl who was in charge of the goats played Heidi herself. All the props for the story were improvised from things lying round the stable.
There were some delightful variations on this because we now had actors performing a goat's impression of, for example, a strict German housekeeper. One goat had been watching too much television through the farmhouse window and kept lapsing into famous lines from films and trying to work them into the story.
It was the essence of good theatre - you couldn't believe how you got yourself into this strange world but nevertheless you bought into it completely. It was both funny and remarkably moving in places, such as when poor Heidi is living in the city but desperately wants to go home to the mountains.
The five actors were fantastic, brilliantly versatile - but they needed to be as they were all playing lots of different characters whilst being, in the case of four of them, in costume as a goat.
There was much cheering from the audience at the end and some great comments in the theatre's visitors book too.
I loved the novel as a child and read it lots of times. This version brought back to me all the pleasure I used to get from the novel and was a tremendously imaginative and enjoyable piece of theatre. Hurrah!
The show was a matinee at Greenwich Theatre.
Rebekah Hughes, who is one of the actors represented by the agency that I work for, played Mether, one of the goats, and also composed the music, which was all unaccompanied singing and was lovely.The premise for the show was this:
Four rather badly-behaved goats were tended by a young girl, who was reading the novel Heidi. Unfortunately, the novel wasn't in very good condition and the pages fell out. The goats were locked in their stable for a couple of days over Christmas, and ate all the pages of the novel.
Rather to their surprise, the story found its way out of their mouths - instead of just bleating, as they'd been doing up till now, they started telling the story of Heidi, and playing all the different characters in the story. The girl who was in charge of the goats played Heidi herself. All the props for the story were improvised from things lying round the stable.
There were some delightful variations on this because we now had actors performing a goat's impression of, for example, a strict German housekeeper. One goat had been watching too much television through the farmhouse window and kept lapsing into famous lines from films and trying to work them into the story.
It was the essence of good theatre - you couldn't believe how you got yourself into this strange world but nevertheless you bought into it completely. It was both funny and remarkably moving in places, such as when poor Heidi is living in the city but desperately wants to go home to the mountains.
The five actors were fantastic, brilliantly versatile - but they needed to be as they were all playing lots of different characters whilst being, in the case of four of them, in costume as a goat.
There was much cheering from the audience at the end and some great comments in the theatre's visitors book too.
I loved the novel as a child and read it lots of times. This version brought back to me all the pleasure I used to get from the novel and was a tremendously imaginative and enjoyable piece of theatre. Hurrah!
posted by Daphne at 5:20 pm
5 Comments:
I agree. The production showed great imagination and fabulous stagecraft. The actors were multi talented and the apparent simplicity of certain devices belied their technical skill, like the creation of Heidi's friend Clara from a cleverly folded blanket.
Glad you enjoyed it even if, according to your previous post, your journey was not so much fun.
PS baaaaaaaaaaaa
I notice that Rebekah Hughes is "a good physical performer" and that her build can be described as "athletic". She is also rather attractive. Is it possible to hire her for private performances?
Ruth - - yes, I forgot to mention Clara - excellent puppetry skills!
YP - yes, Rebekah is very attractive - - but unfortunately I think the answer's going to be a NO!!
That sounds Utterly Fabulous.
- Julie paradox
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