Hansel & Gretel is a very different puzzle [from Rule & Exception] – firstly as to why it is included in a Dance your Socks Off festival at all, since it contains no dance. The cast of young theatre graduates have talent and increasing experience – but unfortunately the mix does not find a happy liftoff in this show.

Basically a musical comedy-cum-cabaret, its music, attractive composition though it be, is amplified way too loud for the actors who either shout or struggle with voice projection. Together with layers of pseudo-German accents, this means we hear only about half the lines.

Movement is at the level of charades in theatre sports, with the exception of Fern Hlin who borrows a certain stylization of facial expression from Asian mask theatre and keeps a consistency going with this throughout the production’s somewhat uneven (anonymous) script.

There’s a further challenge as the production searches for a style, moving from surreal to comic gothic to pantomime. A loudly approving audience (of classmates?) means that the many acerbic references to Hitler and All That were played for troublingly quick laughs. 

It is clear that the intentions are good, and the commentary on bullying forces, be they at the political or the family level, as well as inter-racial tensions, are all important issues to be sure. The transition from idea in a programme note to staged performance was not apparent however, so all in all this was not a comfortable or illuminating night out for me.

I am quite prepared to admit I may be in the minority, and also that several aspects mentioned may well settle as the season continues.  Good courage for the next endeavour.
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Quite why Hansel & Gretel is included in the Dance Your Socks Off festival is a mystery; Act Your Socks Off might have been more appropriate. That’s certainly what they do most of, in cod German accents (well, 3 out of 5 are German characters).

Don’t get me wrong: as a revisiting of the classic Grimm Brothers tale with a 1940s ‘sensibility’, it is fun and quite remarkable at times. But just as the cast – Shane Boulton’s Hansel and Bronwen Pattison’s Gretel in particular – seem ready willing and able to burst into fully-fledged dance and/or physical theatre, the production seems unsettled in its genre.

The recorded music (Tane Upjohn-Beatson) brings an infectious oom-pah rhythm to their witty rhyming couplet songs which are largely recitative and sometimes blossom into melody. The accompanying choreography of movement and actions (unaccredited so presumably down to director Adam Donald) is also crafted for humour and sometimes verges on dance.

A couple of times Pattison’s Gretel leaps into fleeting acrobatic action which surprises and delights but remains undeveloped as a performing convention. (For a costume designer and maker, who also did excellent costumes and props for this show, Pattison has great potential as a physical theatre performer.)

Content-wise, what seems initially to be politically confused turns out to be confronting and thought-provoking. Given the publicity image, reprinted in the programme, of Hitler and the Bavarian children who would (according to a 2007 Daily Mail article) represent racial purity in Hitler’s distorted view, the game seems to be to look for the fascist in the story.

When Hansel and Gretel romp on for their opening number, butter would not appear to melt in their hungry little mouths. But soon we realise their fear and loathing of their Oriental stepmother Ning Ning and her strange cooking habits ("Always rice – I want pie!") amounts to an inability to accept difference and diversity, translating into a knee-jerk desire for ethnic cleansing.

Ning Ning, however – played by a very expressive Fern Hlin (a.k.a. Fern Karun) as if she is competing for the ‘Act Your Face Off’ award – is no angel either. She wants to get rid of the children so that she can have their Woodsman father (Aaron Baker) to herself. And his passive compliance with her wishes makes him especially culpable: pathetic and spineless, he wordlessly challenges us to ask ourselves how we would stand up to fascist manipulators of our all-too-human weaknesses.

Of course we expect the Witch to be evil [spoiler warning…] so it is a dramatic surprise when the hungrily consumed candy house suddenly disappears to reveal a black woman shaking with fear: a compelling performance from Melissa Phillips. But she turns out to be trapping children for her bizarre medical experiments … […ends] 

What are we to make, then, of this ethnic casting in the context of a story that in effect depicts the rise of Hitler Youth? I take it as telling us we are all capable of fascism – of treating others as objects for our own self-serving ends – as history and the daily news continue to remind us. We are not on the outside looking in; we are part of it all.

"In a world where the economy appears to be spiralling downward and people are becoming increasingly desperate," the media release tells us, "[Adam] Donald is interested in examining human desperation at its pinnacle, but does so in a way that is funny, stimulating and engaging." Agreed … almost.

I have to note there is no playwright credited and assume it is devised. This presumably explains the odd non sequitur. For example, the children get separated and sing a song about it, happily sharing the stage while clearly wandering in different places, then suddenly they are back together again without there being any moment of finding each other. Later they agree to eat the strange blue-frilled golden-topped mushrooms simultaneously, but Gretel cheats and Hansel has no reaction to that. When actions don’t have consequences, credibility is undermined.

Also the lighting seemed awry on opening night, with moody blue night lighting suddenly brightening for no apparent reason.

While this Hansel & Gretel has yet to be crafted to reach its full potential, it is already a provocative hour delivered with some very stylish theatrical flourishes.
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