The set is fashioned in majestic playroom style, the central backdrop a white screen framed by silky pink curtains.  To our left a small wooden gazebo with slightly psychedelic, paisley-like gabling, to the right a mannequin torso and a pile of cardboard boxes, papered over with pages from a geographical textbook.  Also scattered about are books, soft toys and a piece of driftwood, and amongst it all, in front of the screen, between the curtains, feet poke out from beneath a patchwork bedspread.  Once everyone’s in we fade to black. 

In the darkness a childlike American girl’s voice narrates how it was being brought to consciousness in the beginning, and guided to the point where the sun comes out – i.e. lights comes up, to the definitively whimsical woodwind and strings of Grieg’s ‘Morning Mood’.   Then pretty young wide-eyed, inquisitive protagonist (Cyan Corwine) embarks upon her journey through life.  Before long her own shadow has come to life (Lyla Corwine), to accompany her, help her through the tough times and sometimes lead her astray.

The Corwine sisters, with the assistance of producer Steve Wrigley, have clearly spent many long hours in their living room creating all manner of structures, puppets, gadgets, costumes and props, to bring us this somewhat twee but nonetheless entrancing theatrical essay on the human condition.

The heroine is not a mannequin per se, but a human girl in a pure white ballet dress, who finds as she grows and learns that the thoughts and ideas that inhabit her more constant body and soul are continually developing, shifting, transforming even. 

Her counterpart, covered head to toe in black, is her liberated shadow, her secret self, her gateway to a wonderful imaginary world where she’s not confined by the limitations of the real one, the one where she’s forced to be a mannequin.

Her self-reflective inquisition into her body image echoes the pointed psychology in Aronofsky’s Black Swan, while the resourceful ingenuity behind the set pieces, props and trans-dreamstate type narrative is reminiscent of the playful artistry of Gondry’s The Science of Sleep.  The graceful, delicate language she employs keeps us ensconced in a very feminine, dainty kind of fantasy world.

Supporting characters are mainly animals – fish, bird, caterpillar-cum-butterfly – and all puppets, brought to life mainly by the shadow but occasionally by the girl, and encountered during extended reveries that journey beneath the ocean and into the clouds.  The schoolteacher, witnessed in shadow, is a fairly boorish stereotype, droning on in typically condescending tones.

The two certainly keep themselves busy throughout the 50-minute performance and there are many intriguing, clever details: the glowing seed which, when planted, grows into an animated human hand; the old crone with the driftwood walking stick; the ideas put in boxes. The resultant food for thought is greater than the sum of its considerably numerous parts.

While the actual character performance and puppetry skills are rudimentary, the focus and intention behind the mercurial abstraction are plenty enough to suspend disbelief and come along for the ride.  With the right kind of drive and opportunities ahead of them, we could be witnessing the next Red Leap Theatre in its infancy. 

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