Elephant’s Child

In The Elephant’s Child and Just So from Metta Theatre, a company of eight present a series of semi-improvised animal fables, followed by a puppet-opera explaining the origin of the pachyderm’s proboscis. Some of the stories are underpinned by music, while others are rooted in the reading-aloud of Kipling’s texts. Shamelessly performing to the children of all ages who make up their audience, the multi-talented cast create a warm, inviting play-world made up of old-fashioned storytelling, singing, dance, music and puppetry.

Rebecca Lea sings with wide-eyed wondrous puzzlement as the baffled Painted Jaguar, and irrepressible naughty sweetness as the eponymous Elephant’s Child. Jason Piper relishes the inordinately prideful dance of the Kangaroo, spinning on his haunches with astonishing strength and speed, and almost stops the show with an immaculately-timed Slow-Solid Tortoise. Poppy Burton-Morgan and Liana Weafer use the least likely bits of brick-a-brack to animate a whole jungle full of remarkable characters, including a feather-duster ostrich, a weirdly plausible shower-head giraffe, and a really quite menacing violin-case crocodile.

Jessica Dannheisser’s score is whimsical and playful, beautifully suited to the arcane sophistication of Kipling’s idiosyncratic fable-language. And Rehanna Kheshgi’s singing of the sinuous music of the great grey-green Limpopo is assured, wise and witty. In fact, the weakest link is a disembodied Samuel West, whose recorded narration of The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo sits slightly uneasily with the friendly, unpredictable liveness of the company’s more immediate storytelling.

The rest of the cast demonstrate an admirable willingness to talk directly to their audience, even the youngest. The little people in the front row are delighted to feed tennis balls to the Elephant’s Child, and even more delighted to be squirted with water from her trunk. This work-in-progress showing has a loveable, rough-around-the-edges quality that actively invites audience participation in the process of telling fabulous tales. Its appealingly relaxed atmosphere more than makes up for some uncertain transitions and a few struggles to navigate an increasingly cluttered stage. Despite these bumpy moments, this is an intelligent, charming and endearingly rough-and-tumble bit of storytelling, with the potential to grow into something truly magical.

For more info about the production, see www.mettatheatre.co.uk

The Elephant’s Child at the Arcola Theatre
Photos by Colin Warriner and Sophie Mosberger
Director Poppy Burton Morgan
Design William Reynolds
Costumes Sophie Mosberger
Lighting William Reynolds