| The Music Box Maker by Philip Michell |
| First presented in 2006 by Gwent Young Peoples Theatre (formerly Gwent Theatre) |
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cast size:?
synopsis: An enchanting new play to celebrate 30 years of high quality theatre in education for schools and communities. There is space on the sideboard where the music box always stood. Mother and father are unhappy and when Katerina asks them about the missing box, she knows one of them is lying. She decides to buy a new music box to replace the old one, a wedding gift from her father to her mother. So Katerina enters the world of Yeva, the music box maker and Dimitri, her assistant, a world of song and stories, of dance and dreams, where music is made and hearts are mended. ‘The Music Box Maker’ is designed for 6 – 9 year olds and tours to Primary Schools from January 5th to March 31st 2006. |
There are 2 reviews of Gwent Young Peoples Theatre (formerly Gwent Theatre)'s The Music Box Maker in our database:
| An engaging, complex piece of theatre | |
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The Music Box Maker
by Philip Michell
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[print] |
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venue Osbaston Junior School, Monmouth |
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April 10, 2006 |
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Inspired by the paintings of a Russian fantasist and stories from Eastern Europe, this hardly the sort of theatre you’d expect young people to be engrossed by – but the six-nine year-olds sitting on the school hall floor at Osbaston were the latest to be enthralled by Philip Michell’s delightful play for Gwent Theatre. It’s a work that has been in the making for Michell, Gwent’s resident playwright, for fifteen years now and it’s certainly one of his best plays, combing his storytelling skills, his more recent experience of working with young audiences and his unpredictable imagination. How else better to work these talents together than in a story about an eccentric couple who love telling stories but who can reality mixed up with fiction? Marc Chagall’s strange pictures, with lovers kissing as one floats in the air and the odd juxtoposition of elements from traditional folktales, are echoed in Michell’s whirling, surreal script that elaborates on a simple tale of a young girl who wants a broken music box mended for her mother’s birthday. Katerina walks not just into the shop of horologists Yeva and Mimitri but into their bizarre world of rituals and routines, music-making, story-telling, dancing and dreaming and memories. She is more than just an inquisitive customer, but an intruder into their cosy world, where Yeva’s agoraphobia has remained unmentioned, for example; Katerina also has her own story, of a troubled home where her father has left her mother. For the teachers who pick up the theatre company’s visit after they’ve packed up and returned to their Abergavenny base, it’s the issues that will be at the core of the play – divorce and separation, arguments, the value of friends, dealing with problems. But The Music Box Maker, like all the best YPT work, is first and foremost an engaging, complex piece of theatre. There’s no easy answer for Katerina, even if humanity forces Yeva into facing the outside world, and the only moral is that friends and imagination can help while time and love perhaps can heal. The script never patronises – in fact it stretches its audience not only with the sheer number of stories and their interweaving, the blurring of reality and imagination but with its use of various kids of language, from the intimate vernacular of Yeva and Dimitri to the formal literary style of the story-book that Dimitri reads aloud. There’s a wit and an intelligence in this play, one that delights in the fantastic but also in the minutiae of life, in the relationship between certainties and mysteries, with its metaphorical use of mechanics, music and marvels (thanks to some effective trickery from George Davis-Stewart). Music, inevitably, is important, too: at times the production is almost a mini-opera, with conversations being sung and with lots of music throughout, composed by Lucy Rivers, better known as a fine young actor. Her striking original score leans on Klezmer and Hungarian gypsy folk music as well as the sound of music boxes. This is Gwent Theatre’s thirtieth year of providing theatre in education, and director Gary Meredith has been with the company since its inception: his deft handling of what could be a confusing piece is testament to his experience. There are some really nice performances, too, from Jain Boon, Gareth Wyn Griffiths and Llinos Mai, and a fine set from Georgina Miles that includes effective puppetry - and a snoozing dummy cat. |
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| reviewer: David Adams |
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The Music Box Maker
by Philip Michell
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[print] |
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venue Llanover Hall Cardiff |
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March 2, 2009 |
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| I knew that there was a pretty cottage in a field on the other side of the forest. I could often see smoke twirling out of its twisted chimney. I needed to get there because it was where the music box maker lived. Before he went away my daddy had given my mummy a music box to cheer her up because he knew that she would miss him. Now the music box was broken and my mother was not just sad because my daddy had gone away but because her lovely music box couldn’t play pretty tunes anymore. It was very scary scrambling through the forest but I soon arrived outside the big wooden door of the house, I think I could hear singing inside. I knocked and was asked in. The house built by Georgina Miles was even prettier on the inside. It was all made of very warm wood, painted in lots of bright cheerful colours, it had funny shelves that sloped up and down but they still held the books on them. There was one very big book, it was a magic book! And there was a black and white cat called Kushka that slept all the time. And a bench with lots of tools for making music boxes. On the wall there was a photograph in a frame of a man with a very kindly face. Later they told me it was the music box maker’s brother but it was very sad because he had died. That was a long time ago so the music box maker was very cheerful today, he made me smile. He was called Dmitri; he walked around in a very funny way and played a ukulele. He was very clever because he could make it sound like a violin. He was playing really nice music that was specially written for him by Lucy Rivers. His name wasn’t actually Dmitri it was Gareth Wyn-Griffiths, he was so charming and entrancing that I am sure he would have completely captivated all the 6 to 9 year old children in the schools where he usually told his story. He was helped by Yeva but I think she was the one that did most of the hard work. She also had another name, Jain Boon. Now Jain Boon has been telling these stories for a long time and she is so good at it. She’s a lovely warm big-hearted lady and her eyes shine at you as she speaks. It was very funny when Dmitri and Yeva danced together, banging their big boots that we all have to wear in this country because of the very cold weather. The second time I went there I saw a little man his name was Pavlushka sitting on the end of the book-shelf looking very sad. This was because his girl friend, Svetlana had been blown right out of the open door of the house and he was missing her very badly. Yeva made Svetlana out of a shawl and Dmitri picked up the man and they made them both do a magic dance together. I thought that was very clever but it made me feel sad. My name is Katarina, well really its Lizzie Rogan. Lizzie has also been in lots of stories and all the people love to watch her because she can be funny and sad and little and strong all wrapped up into one person. A man called Gary, Gary Meredith made a very good job of bringing Phillip Mitchell’s gentle and delightful story to a happy end. My mother’s music box was mended, my father came home Svetlana flew back in the widow and Pavlushka was overjoyed it was as if she had never left. That was what all the people watching the story felt – overjoyed! |
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| reviewer: Michael Kelligan |
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