Project Pinocchio

‘Project Pinocchio’ was written by Into the Mask Theatre and is presented in conjunction with the Phoenix Theatre at the Memorial Hall, on the corner of Rockingham Road and Carrington Street, Hamilton Hill. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday the performances start at 8.00 pm, along with matinees on Saturday and Sunday at 2.00 pm. The four day run finishes on the 7^th April.

‘Into the Mask Theatre’ is a group of five teachers, mainly dramatists, who have developed Collodi’s age-old tale of ‘Pinocchio’ into an electrifying, hour-long, modern presentation. They have employed the Italian, 16^th century street entertainment principles and techniques of Commedia dell’ Arte; this is using comedy, acrobatics and physical skills to subtly pass onto the audience the highest standards of morality and ethics. The whole presentation is carried out with minimal props and costume changes. The effect is created by fun characters, papier-mâché masks and colourful clothing extras over the basic black attire. 

         The gullible and slightly dim wooden puppet, Pinocchio (Shane McMullan) was carved by his impoverished father Gepetto (Alex Roberts). Gepetto is keen for his new son to go to a good school, but that costs money! 

         Pinocchio is given five gold coins by a friend of his father, these must be delivered quickly and safely to Gepetto, however, despite warnings from the bug-eyed cricket (Emily van Eijndhoven) the young boy is conned by Cat (Laura Grigson) and Fox (Alethea Bevilacqua). 

      He goes on to meet a dozen more very different characters on his search, and attempts to get the coins back. The search travels through the country, into the deep sea and even to the circus. To the joy of the children, the actors occasionally mingled with the audience.

This style of presentation demands a huge amount of talent. How often has one seen slapstick or mime on third rate comedy films and thought how boringly puerile the whole effect was? Then Mr Bean came along and made the whole thing look hilariously simple. Here, because of the vast rehearsal time, the overall effect is slick and with a totally natural flow. Initially I wondered why this style of presentation wasn’t used more often, then it dawned just how difficult the method was to carry off satisfactorily.

This is almost the Mike Leigh style of acting, using the same principles employed four centuries ago. The actors have to learn their characters traits perfectly, and then the story is presented mainly as an improvised piece. The techniques are designed to present the story in a method that can be understood by any nationality and any age. This means that the mime must be slick, any voice intonation perfect and with a mask being worn - even the half masks – the diction clear.

Often the gestures and movements are synchronised. The overall effect is that of playschool combined with the comedy and slapstick of Laurel and Hardy. There were one of two dark moments, but they were brief and even the youngest audience members weren’t too frightened.

Sensitively handled lighting by Pauline Lawrence, along with live percussion music and all of the sound effects created by Terry Vinci, gave a lively pace and the various moods were richly created.

Even proficient writers can see how important serious structure is to humour. So especially senior school students can see how improve their scripting skills.

Director Alethea Bevilacqua has brought a wonderful team together and given us something new – OK, revived the ancient skills. The children laughed throughout, as did the adults. I sat with a broad grin for the whole show. I eagerly anticipate their next production.