A pearl richer than all her tribe
Blue Raincoat Theatre Co. fashioned a play about a young woman who dives for peals in an increasing hostile environment. Stock image
As the lights come up, Blue Theatre Co.’s inky black players create gentle waves on strips of blue cloth that grow in intensity as the wind builds and howls to reveal a coming storm.
Tiny boats rise and fall on the massive waves and the stick houses that stand in the sea have little defence against a typhoon.
Blue Raincoat Theatre Co. has fashioned a play about a young woman who dives for peals in an increasing hostile environment brought about by climate change.
The five actors – Sandra O’ Malley, Aisling Mannion, Áine Ní Laoghaire, Brian Devaney and John Carty – manipulate the puppet diver along with the tiny boats, the stormy waves, the exploration of the deep and the scattering of the stick houses in a series of dramatic incidents that all warn of the effects of climate change.
Blue Raincoat has skin in the game of puppetry and their production of 'Shakeleton' in a similar style still remains in the memory.
The performers have mastered the Bunraku style of using traditional Japanese puppets and scaled models to tell their story and the effect is rich and mystical.
There is much use of shadow puppetry to tell the story of the girl pearl diver.
Each evening, the central character returns to her bamboo home to disperse the riches of the sea floor.
She becomes pregnant during the play’s timeframe and a baby is born.
In time, the small child is trained by her mother to dive and we watch, as the sea child, descends to the depths to scavenge also.
A circle of poverty and shame hangs over the production.
The woman, probably unaware of the wealth of the world outside her realm, not only dives to the sea bed in the most dangerous of circumstances but also trains her young child to do likewise.
The shadowed images of the child’s arrival onto this earth and her failure to lift some objects from the sea floor further accentuates the sense of hopelessness and exploitation that lurks everywhere in the narrative.
The play is not without its problems.
Too much of the action of the performance is on the front apron of the stage and the audience’s sightlines are significantly obscured.
The action of the play needs to be moved upstage.
The storyline also become repetitive and – although only some 80 minutes long – some scenes could be dropped.
Nevertheless, the play is a visual and aural feast that was different. Well done…again…Blue Raincoat.
The use of Bunraku, traditional Japanese puppets, is amazing and enhances the beautiful storytelling.
Additionally, the incorporation of shadow puppetry and scaled models adds to the visual richness and were a highlight of the performance.
