Writer: KT Roberts
Director: Micha Mirto
Gina has been working in a maximum security prison, attempting to re-habilitate super-villains. Sort of. She is being interviewed by a journalist about a prison riot she barely survived, and for which her counselling skills may have been responsible; she is nervous and guilty-seeming, and transparently shifts responsibility for background incidents onto her blameless, possibly fictitious, cat Mittens. As the interview proceeds, we learn more about the characters she works with and the stories they tell.
There is lots of beautiful physical comedy, and above all, there are drawings. Throughout the play, the writer KT Roberts sits behind an overhead projector and works graphic magic on sheets of plastic transparencies, creating characters, illustrating sound effects comics-style, and threatening the prison with a wonderfully articulated rainbow-coloured rhinoceros. The overhead projector is a deceptively simple tool but it is wielded expertly to great comic effect, and the graphics are funny, dramatically appropriate, and very charming.
The company calls itself Dolls in Amber. There are four performers in addition to the graphics puppeteer, and they are all really good. Particularly noteworthy is the point-perfect physical work of Francesca Forristal and Sofia Engstrand, as a super-villain formed from the fused personalities of two random strangers. The inter-body dynamics of this character are illustrated with choreographed precision that makes it both funny and credible. Simple effects presented with great skill and no fanfare seems to be a core value for this company, and it is a pleasure to behold. The company is completed by Emma Richardson as Gina the therapist, and Robbie Bellekom as the super-villain known as the Ink Lord, whose super-power is the ability to make pictures come alive.
Dolls in Amber don’t take themselves seriously; they just get on with telling stories well, making the jokes work, and being excellent value entertainment for a snappy, fluid, hour-long show. And then they have KC Lylark’s beautiful animation as their special ingredient. A thoroughly enjoyable, highly original, eminently watchable piece of comic theatre.
Runs until 19 March 2023
