Theatre review: .H.G., Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

NOT suitable for children under nine, says the stern note in the Imaginate brochure about Trickster of Switzerland’s audio installation show .h.g., playing in the studio behind the Modern Art Gallery until today.

In truth, though, this beautiful and searching response to the story of Hansel and Gretel seems to me a wholly adult event, a mature woman’s reflection on the terrible underlying violence of a tale in which two children are first abandoned to die in the forest, and then almost consumed by a wicked witch who lures them into her gingerbread cottage, only to fatten them for her oven.

Over nine installations, arranged like a dark indoor maze, the middle-aged woman’s voice on our headphones – sometimes surrounded by the voices of the children – leads us deeper into the story, until we pass through a creaking wooden door.

There is a long, dark, winding walk through a miniature forest of six-inch pine trees, and suddenly the cottage, with a seductive smell of cinnamon in the air, and an interior of tiny bleached bones.

The voices tell us how the witch finally dies, in her own oven; but then there is a final, sobering installation – the outline of a body on the floor, a cabinet of burnt and abandoned remains – that makes us think of other ovens, in another Europe. At the beginning, the voice tells us how she wanted a happy ending; yet in the end, after a sobering 30 minutes, there’s a deep and disturbing sense that none has been achieved.

Rating: ****