Splat

‘Splat!’ is a production for young children, currently running at The Spare Puppet Theatre next to the railway station in Fremantle everyday at 11.00 am and 2.00 pm until the 21^st July. It is directed by Philip Mitchell. The show was written by Sally Richardson and has been imaginatively developed a small creative group.

 The beginning of the show is a little like playgroup, there are various large shapes in primary colours that come to life. The red square is the ‘home’ of a domineering personality (Stefan Karlsson), the yellow triangle is everyone’s friend (Claudia Alessi) and the poor round blue is a slightly dim looser (Michael Barlow). The team move the shapes around the stage building various shapes, creating worlds and in the process do some quite complex choreography and acrobatics to the music. The backing is live music – partly traditional, much of it new, sparkly and precisely timed to the action (Lee Buddle). Then when no-one is looking, Blue decides to make a telescope and examine the heavens. Soon he finds himself in space where he meets relatives of ET and fun space monsters (developed by Jiri Zmitko). 

As an adult I could admire the skills, the lessons being passed on, but would the audience of mainly 3 to 7 year olds enjoy it. A quick look around at the viewers confirmed that they were totally entranced.

 At first glances the set was simple, but a great deal of maths must have been employed by Cecile Williams to ensure that the various shapes fitted together and within each other. There were a couple of sequences where the cast ‘drew’ on a back projection screen with big paint brushes, in perfect sync with the projector. Sharon Custer’s animation then came alive and the kids loved it. 

I was amazed at the general appreciation as I thought the whole show perhaps too clever for the age of the audience, but they came out with smiles and twinkles in their eyes.

 This clever 50-minute show is almost fully booked so check about ticket availability.