Writer and Director: Patrick Sims
Ambergris is a production by French puppet theatre company, Les Antliaclastes, presented as part of MimeLondon 2024. Billed as an alchemical puppet operetta, it is visually highly inventive. The set by Richard Penny and Nicholas Hubert is part Wurlitzer organ, part alchemist’s laboratory. Sometimes a large porthole appears, allowing glimpses into underwater worlds including the inside of the belly of a whale. Karine Dumont’s sound world is intriguing – from echoes of the natural world to the loud pumping melodies from the Wurlitzer repertoire.
The puppets by Patrick Sims and Joséphine Biereye are certainly captivating. Physical changes in scale are central. Some puppets are tiny. Miniature mermaids swing out from two upstairs windows. Pinocchio, another small creature, is not in his classic green and red kit, but disturbing skeletal, with skull-like head and stick limbs. Captain Ahab, on the other hand, is vast and clumsy.
But what is Pinocchio doing in the story? And it is here that Ambergris seems to lose coherence. What is the character who is already a puppet doing in the belly of the whale along with Captain Ahab? We may know Ahab from Moby Dick and be familiar with the biblical story of Jonah and the whale. We may even know that ambergris is the intestinal secretion of sperm whales, a much-prized ingredient of perfume makers (this makes sense of the alchemist/perfumier character, portrayed as a giant nose). The show certainly makes us aware of the source of ambergris, with lots of jolly scatological references, from a constipated whale on a toilet to a giant anus ejecting a lump of the stuff. But the issue with Ambergris is that it is not at all clear how these storylines connect.
It is possible, if you track down Patrick Sims’ online notes, to read his sophisticated musings on the theme of transformation and the totalising symbol of ambergris as a sort of philosopher’s stone.
But a story told wordlessly through puppetry, spectacle and music has to be able to communicate directly through its chosen media. And Ambergris simply gets too lost in its own world.
Runs until 27 January 2024
