Review Theatre: Fish Clay Perspex | Jackson's Lane | Suspense Puppetry Festival | Faulty Optic | Green Ginger's Rust

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The Review - THEATRE by SIMON WROE
Published: 5 November 2009

Perspex perplexes with fishy old yarn

FISH CLAY PERSPEX
Jackson's Lane

IS there any artistic medium with as few strings attached as puppetry?
It’s an irony that is joyfully explored – and occasionally pushed to breaking point – in Faulty Optic’s fanciful Fish Clay Perspex, which opened the Suspense Puppetry Festival last week.
I doubt if there is a single member of the audience who could explain what happens in the production, let alone what any of it means.
An old man picking shells on a beach is unwittingly conjoined with a gigantic crimson anglerfish that falls onto his head from the sky; a talentless sculptor destroys another’s work; two one-legged creatures play around with spools of sellotape and try to get into a drawing of a room where a cat is eating a fish.
Perhaps the fish is related to the anglerfish of the first act. Perhaps the cat is God. Who knows?
Of course, it’s churlish to carp about narrative structure and verisimilitude in a puppet play: the format has different fish to fry. We do not watch puppetry for the story but for the invention, for the telling of the tale, and though we may recognise human qualities in the characters, we are not surprised if they transcend human limitations.
Faulty Optic have no shortage of creativity and originality – the things they can evoke with a pane of glass and a marker pen beggars belief – but unchecked and without a comprehensive vehicle these virtues can lose some of their vitality.
The pleasingly ugly puppets are expertly handled throughout, however, and each segment brims with unusual and infinitely resourceful ideas, as good puppetry should.
Other events of note at the Londonwide Suspense festival include Green Ginger’s Rust at the Pleasance, a take on Conrad’s Heart of Darkness staged on a barge and masterclasses on marionette making.
Festival runs until November 8, see suspensefestival.com

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