The Snow Queen

Teresa Ludovico, writer and director, says that adults need fairy tales. She brought Beauty and The Beast to Oxford a few years ago. She has already toured with a version of The Snow Queen in Japan, she herself is Italian, the actors in her troupe are French, Swiss, Italian. It is not surprising then that she makes much of the travelling in this story.

The story is familiar, one of Hans Christian Andersen's best, about two children growing up together. They share everything in life, including a garden. Then Kay is captured by the Snow Queen and Gerda must rescue him. On the way she meets a strange assortment of characters, and by the end of her journey she finds she has grown up.

In this performance the movement is superb. Seven actors populate several magical kingdoms with a whole host of colourful characters, who are brought to life through their movements. Unruly demons scamper, a reindeer cavorts, crows strut, the prince whirls and tumbles on his acrobatic cloth rope. Not only are the movements beautiful, they're all individual and perfectly suited to the characters. Then of course there's the Snow Queen with her dramatic oriental dance and music. Elisabetta di Terlizzi even manages to look Japanese. The "duet" as she attacks Kay from across the stage is perfectly synchronised: she lashes out and he contorts in pain. 

Individual elements are spectacular and magical. The snow shimmers, the music changes from electronic squeaks to blasts of Bizet, and the robbers in the wood are genuinely menacing. There is a wide range of moods, and this leaves some aspects of this production feeling neither one thing nor the other. The play opens with mad chief demon telling fart jokes, which doesn't sit well with some of the darker scenes. It feels as if the director has not decided whether this is a play for children or adults, and it switches too quickly. Similarly the play is in more than one language (not surprising, perhaps, considering the cast)! This is interesting but doesn't help the coherence of the play. It is either extremely clever of Ludovico to have perfectly captured the feeling of in-between-ness which characterises adolescence, or it's annoyingly indecisive.

For me the problem with the play is the interpretation of the fairy-tale. Ludovico focuses heavily on the journey, to the detriment of its conclusion. The final showdown is an anticlimax, but so is the original capture. I thought this was a story of the seductive power of power, that Kay is fascinated with the Snow Queen and delighted to be captured by her; he only discovers too late what he has to sacrifice. I would like more focus on both the seduction and the final battle, and more change in Kay and Gerda, more sign they've grown up in the course of the play. It is interesting to find that something as simple as a fairy-tale can be interpreted so differently.

I left feeling a strange mixture of dissatisfaction and delight, which may be exactly what the director intended.

Jen Pawsey (DI Reviewer), 04/04/07

---

‘Moon. Fire. Thread.’ Is the dancing game that links the childhood friends Gerda and Kay until a shard of glass from a broken magic mirror freezes Kay’s heart. The Snow Queen who lives in the Ice Palace takes him. So begins Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale performed as a piece of devised physical theatre for children of 7 years and above by Teatro Kismet. Motifs are used brilliantly to bring out the symbols of Gerda leaving childhood behind as she makes her journey to rescue Kay. The challenges of adolescence are ever present, for example the grip of an over protective mother is portrayed by the broom-toting ‘woman of the garden’ with her ensemble of playful dancing flowers. Seven short stories make up the tale of the Snow Queen and the most jaw dropping moment of all is the ‘dream of the prince and princess’ (Francesco Maneti and Elisa Canessa) who are hanging on black drapes from which their bodies uncurl and perform death defying aerial acrobatics to a dark grinding soundscape.

Seasons change as the story unfolds and Gerda journeys through falling snow with a reindeer. She gives the river her ‘most precious possession’, her red shoes that she uses to perform rhythmic flamenco in. Highly technical dance flows through this 65-minute performance. The Snow Queen (Elisabetta di Terlizzi) is mesmerising with her strong movements inspired by Japanese martial arts. She is successful in whipping up a whirl of a snowstorm backlit dramatically by three asymmetric lights but will Gerda succeed in melting her heart with just a single firework? Gerda must draw on the advice she has been given along the way. A Finlandian woman offers her the most inspiring in a scene that is introduced by a comic song routine of three endearing little Laplanders. The faceless Finlandian says she cannot offer Gerda anything, for ‘the strength is inside your heart’. Indeed Gerda has already moved a cruel vicious robber girl to kindness, a scene that instantly captures the hearts of the young ones in the audience. The path to the ice palace is now clear, but Gerda must tread it alone without the cheery support of the hilariously comic grotesque Mrs Crow & her boyfriend Mr Crow (Eve Guerrier and Augusto Masiello; who play a variety of comedy roles superbly in a Mediterranean style).

In a show that welcomes us in with a big loud fart (recreating the big bang!), the beautifully crafted theatrical style of Italian company Teatro Kismet brings the message home for the kids but for the adults there is a deeper, immediately useful and reassuring truism to uncover. To summarise a description given by inspired director Teresa Ludovico; ‘when a boy and a girl are born the moon asks the buckets of silk to create a long silk thread…even if they don't exist anymore, their thread will still climb up to the moon.’ So for the people we have lost, the relationship between us still remains, we are all bound by beautiful red thread. A comforting thought! And this is where the gentle folk tale ends; Gerda and Kay are no longer children but are brought back together with red thread bound around their ankles. They dance to the accordion player and sing, ‘Moon. Fire. Thread.’ The lights fade. And someone has to pick up all the snow that has landed on the first three rows of the seats so it can be recycled! It’s encouraging to know that the magic will happen again tonight.

Lita Doolan (DI Reviewer), 05/04/07

---

This has to be one of the most appalling productions I have ever seen, whether intended for adults or children. Not only was it totally unsuitable for young children -- one would have thought its principal audience -- there existed no logical sequence of events, while the singing and dialogue was delivered in several languages. No doubt the director would brand me a philistine for stating what many other members of the audience were heard to say during and after the performance: pretentious, nonsensical, idiotic and on several occasions, downright crass. The director also had the temerity to appear on the stage after the show as if we had called for your presence when in reality I have never heard such muted applause in a theatre.

frog (Unverified), 04/04/07

---