| A panto with some important educational elements. |
| This Review first appeared in the Western Mail |
Theatr na n'Og |
| Theatr na n'Og- The Princess and the Hunter , Theatre Brycheniog, Brecon , April 15, 2006 |
Here we go again, another story of English oppression of the Welsh thinly disguised as a fairy story. Huh ! You think by plucking a tale out of a fairy-tale book and having some live rock music we’ll be fooled into thinking this is harmless fun for the kids ?So why else have the wicked wolf and the poncy posh prince got English accents while the innocent animals who have been all but hunted out of existence got Welsh accents ? Why do the culturally dominated wildlife form an alliance with an intruder from Ireland (even if she is a blond with the voice of an angel) ? Why is it the prince, despite being stupid and laddish, regarded with awe by the animal survivors ? Why are they so grateful to him at the end for merely being allowed to exist under his rule ? Why is his henchman a howling wolf, a heartless predator ? The Princess and the Hunter, directed and scripted (after the original actors had developed their roles) by Geinor Styles for her Theatr na n’Og company, raises all sorts of questions about colonial acquiescence in Wales - absolutely none of which will trouble its audience. Because this is presented as panto, excellently done, albeit panto with some important educational elements. Like environmental responsibility. Prince Brochwel is an idiot not just because he plays heavy metal-style guitar while singing in an American accent but because he does it in the middle of a forest – and if he doesn’t scare the wildlife that way, he’s really into the latest weaponry and can simply kill them. Like celebrating the power of music. Not only do young royals weld their axes as well as their bows, wolves are good on guitar, owls know their winds, deer play clarinet, otters do a mean bass line and, this will really surprise you, badgers can go ape behind a drum kit. Like learning about endangered species. Badgers, we learn, are lumbering prop-shaped Welshmen who are a bit dull, owls are funny Welsh fat things who don’t like heights, deer walk like dancers, hares hop and are hare-brained and female otters leave strategically-placed piles of poo as a turn-on to any randy male otters. And fairy princesses, possibly even more likely to become extinct, sing a lot. Like moral dilemmas. How do you behave in a post-holocaust survivalist situation ? Is your responsibility to other individuals or to the group ? Wow, these wild things have to make daily decisions that do your head in. What the kids, oddly, don’t learn about is resistance – these oppressed Welsh animals really are a supine lot, utterly ignorant of the strategies of guerrilla warfare, for example, and finding no ignominy in bowing and scraping to English royalty. And this version of the legend of St Melangell and the Hare really does put a different gloss on a familiar tale, politicising what was an innocent little love story to explain the foundation of a spiritual community that gave sanctuary to people and animals. It certainly makes for an entertaining couple of hours and, seriously, this show signals a major shift in the direction of Wales’s Young People’s Theatre movement – this has the same production standards as any mainstage presentation, so making it far more “theatre for young audiences” than “theatre in education”. Na n’Og first surprised us all with this slick slice of fun last year and the company has decided to restage it with a new design – not the colourful whimsy of last time (which I actually liked) but a typical sophisticated set from Sean Crowley that looks more, well, grown-up. In fact I suspect the whole thing is geared more to adult tastes – even the music is AOR – with an eye to family audiences. And maybe to English audiences, since the tour takes the company over Offa’s Dyke to Birmingham, Coventry and Hereford, which would certainly explain the subservience to the imperialist hunters of the Midlands. ends |
Reviewed by: David Adams |
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