Festival review: Enter the Woods; TheSpace @ Venue 45

By David Pollock
Published on 17/08/2012 17:14

It’s like a first-year drama school project taken to the nth degree.

“Be a tree,” it seems as if the young actors of the Flying High company were told, and they’ve dedicated themselves to doing just that, exploring the many possibilities apparent in character and situation the task might suggest to them.

This is actually a series of small, disparate vignettes divided up between the members of the large ensemble, but they’re knitted together with skill, professionalism and a delicate understanding of tone.

The costumes are very effective, all-over suits and 
make-up design in green and brown that merges the cast with the background, like trees standing on a forest floor.

They begin in striking musical harmony, emulating the whoosh and rustle of wind blowing through branches and trunks. Like a dream, they sift through a sexualised Little Red Riding Hood and a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, while children run through the woods and the trees watch ominously.

When the tone changes sharply and this forest become the resting place of the Ipswich murder victims, it’s a credit that it feels in keeping with the rest of this taut character piece.

Rating: * * * *

Until tomorrow. Today 10:15pm.