Review: The Little Pirate Mermaid

Performed at the Centre of Puppetry Arts, The Little Pirate Mermaid almost puts The Lion King to shame. This is an actual commission from the Centre - this is something I’ve just worked out, and it makes total sense. The set design is configured in such a way I had no idea how they would be able to tour it; now I know that they probably won’t.

As you can guess, this is a retweaked telling of The Little Mermaid, with the only change that the man the mermaid falls in love with is a pirate. She then has to live on a pirate ship, until of course, everything resolves itself with her overbearing father, Poseidon. The entire show was done in rhyme (ABAB). Technically speaking, some lines weren’t in rhyme, but the show predominantly was. There were also occasional songs.

I’m not sure I can describe the true amazing-ness of the set design. We sit down inside the theatre and see this ‘wall’ of painted scenery pushed right up against the proscenium arch; therefore, the only thing really visible on the stage is the apron, which has two ‘waves of the ocean’ sitting on the floor (those flat boards that are painted to represent oceans… geez I’m crap at describing this). The wall itself is decorated with a ship, a large mermaid on the bow stage right, the captain’s quarters and a second deck stage left. Stage right is also a crow’s nest. In the middle of the side of the ship, where you have the portholes, there is a curtained off area, which would be the performance area for some of the puppets. Just slighly to the stage left of that are three cannons sticking out of the wall. Everything was painted beautifully and had many three-dimensional aspects to it, so it wasn’t just a flat painting.

The performance uses marionettes, shadow and rod puppets, along with lots of moving parts: the mermaid’s head on the bow of the ship turns and narrates the story; stage left on the wall a painted wave rolls away to reveal a small performance area; the crow’s nest is accessible and a rod puppet performs there, the sails being pulled into place; the cannons ‘fire’ in the end of the show; the large sail on the ship is also a projection screen for the shadow puppets; the second deck is also another rod puppet performance area… and that’s just the beginning of the fun. For the scenes with the hag, some of it was even done using blacklight, to great effect. And the scenery itself within the marionette performance area (remember, the curtained off galley?) is just as stunning as the decorated wall. Every detail is thought of.

My favourite part of this was when a Kraken appears (although at this point I was wondering whether someone had been watching a little too much Pirates of the Carribean), the head of which was a rod puppet operated from above (everything is operated from above, because of the marionettes) and appeared behind a small ship in the playing area. There were two tentacle rod puppets that appear from above, but in front of the small ship (so it looked like the tentacles were ‘on board’ the ship), and two inflatable tentacles appeared between the two waves set on the apron. The whole effect produced a good sense of dimension, distance and scale, and was the most believable thing I’ve seen onstage so far this week.

I could say that the manipulation was flawless - although the puppet design was executed brilliantly - it wasn’t. The mermaid/merman puppets swam in a strange way, with only their tail fin moving up and down. A true tail should move from the knees or hips as well, but they didn’t. It made the whole movement slightly less than realistic. (At least, this is what I believe; I found it hard to pin down what exactly was wrong with the movement, though I knew there was something weird about it) There were also moments when, as needed by the puppeteers, they had to hang the puppet momentarily whilst it was still on stage. A couple of times this left the puppet looking awkward, with their bodies sagging slightly and ungainly. It would not have been noticeable to regular audiences, but to us, it was very obvious.

The show is sung and spoken clearly and well; I thought perhaps that the whole thing had been pre-recorded, it all sounded so good. But then when one of the puppets mentioned (in one of those, "we just need filler dialogue here as we exit the stage" moments) that they needed to remember to sign up to the Puppeteers of America festival, I realised it couldn’t possibly be pre-recorded. The four puppeteers that perform this show sing and speak the show themselves, along with doing all the manipulation and scene changes - this show is very complicated, and so I applaud them for pulling it off with very little wrong in the process.

At the end of the show, they gave a little demo of the show, which was great. They not only showed us some of their puppets - the marionettes have strings something like 2 metres long - but also hooked up a video which was projected on the sail/screen. The camera showed us behind the scenes of that great big wall, so we could see what they do behind the stage. It was very neat. For those who are interested, you can find a video below (not the same demo obviously, but still a video) of behind-the-scenes of the show, from creation and building to rehearsal. At about 5.15 into the video you can see some of the final set so you can understand my description above a bit better. (If anyone finds a picture of this show and its actual set, please let me know I’d love to post it here)

Funnily enough, I found myself wondering whether the set was a bit of overkill. But you know what, in the end, I think it’s pretty cool. Some of the stuff I expected the set to do, it did. But for most of it, I didn’t even imagine that it would happen. So I think this show should get a high rating, even despite some odd manipulation: