The Isaac Theatre Royal’s Gloucester Room sets the scene for this 30 minute show for pre-schoolers: Play Play, by Cubbin Theatre Company. Grandparents, Dads, Mums, Friends and little people probably aged between 2 to 5 are filing in over the navy carpeted foyer, complete with twinkling morning chandeliers.

This delightful show is set in the thrust, maximising audience participation. There are two rows-deep of wine velvet chairs on the three sides, fairly full of people with less, more and no wrinkles. Spongey grey rubber matting (the sort you’d see at any childcare centre) is on the floor also, for those theatre-goers younger and older who prefer to sit (or dance) on the ground. The performance space is then delineated by a double-scooped-ice-cream-shape of artificial green grass (more ECE mementos).

Soundscape fills the air. A pre-recorded drip, a finger-thumb-click, a single deep drum. It’s on repeat, and creates a gentle sense of anticipation and wonder.

Oh look, the neighbours are here, a Mum and her two young girls. My three are sitting alongside me on the velvet. The eldest (the 10 year old) hisses across her younger brother, “Why are there so many young kids?” I play dumb, so as to not ‘colour’ her experience of a show made for those younger than her ‘tween self. 

The show starts with a ‘Pop’, the sort you can make by scooping a finger along the inside of your cheek and out your pursed mouth. The lights lower and the first of two actors, Reylene Rose Hilaga, is suddenly on stage with her adorable outfit of delphinium blue tunic (which she sometimes stretches to make her look like an upside down tulip), sunshine yellow tights and fuchsia pink arms. Hilaga has just the right ‘tone’ for a children’s show. A gorgeous openness, joy in her face and lyrical, gentleness in her movements.

Moments later Amy Straker (whom I’d enjoyed in a previous Cubbin Theatre Company’s performance) joins Hilaga. The complicité is parfait. Straker’s character has more perplexity about her: she is wide-eyed and wears giant flowers on her cobalt blue jumpsuit, Princess Leah side buns and a similar peacefulness to Hilaga’s.

This play is wordless. Perfect to tour the world with. I think of it as a show of two clowns who have forgotten to don their noses. Like cirque du soleil clowns, rather than Warner Bros clowns (to be clear). There’s that French-clown-like delight, the love of ‘le jeu’ (the game|play), that quiet whimsy we see in Charlie Chaplin films. 

What a treat! 

My 10, 8 and 6-year-old are captivated. Some on the edge of their seats. Another leans back, motionless.

The 3-year-old little boy in front of me is in heaven. He’s wearing jeans, a plaid shirt and sandals, looking very respectable. Has someone dressed him in his theatre-best? Oftentimes his tongue is out, displaying concentration, as he watches the performers, then twists round to see Grandma and me. He edges forward over the grey matting, closer to the artificial grass. Later, he becomes part of the performance as he tears across the space in glee. His Grandma, in love and a little discomforted, explains, “He just loves music & rhythm.”

I marvel at how generous it is for this Cubbins Theatre Company to craft a show that children can enjoy and bring their whole selves to; that these young ones aren’t expected to sit still and keep quiet like their Nannies and Koros would have once-upon-a-time had to do, at the theatre. This production is deliberately kept simple, quiet and accessible, making it utterly age appropriate (a rarity of a theatre opportunity for pre-schoolers).

The show’s energy builds now. The actors play a collection of brief scenes, all without words, again reinforcing that clown-like convention once employed by Laurel and Hardy.

The live soundscape acts as language. The ‘sound performer’ is hidden (behind us at the sound desk with their small keyboard). The actors play – touching at times with curious pointer fingers their own bodies, the pokes and prods activate sounds which develop into sketches of becoming kitchen objects, a microwave, a toaster, a duck. Yes ducks can be found in kitchens! Dead and/or alive. The magical play between performers and amplified sounds is satisfying and mysterious for the audience young and old.

Children’s voices ring out, as they ask their adults, “What was that noise?”

Some highlights are when our clown-like performers dance a bottom dance, to African or is it Portuguese percussion? Great music: kia ora composer, Hamish Oliver! We want to dance our bottoms too. Another moment of sweetness is when our two clowns HUG.

So genius – Director Melanie Luckman – to cast clowns for a kids’ show, about play. The innocence, playfulness and light-hearted spirit of the clown has the quality of the child. This play has got me musing. It’s a beautiful moment (as a Parent) to celebrate the gifts and lessons of our young’ what they show us, when we’re awake enough to watch. We can’t be on our phones, and computers or we’ll miss it. We’ll miss the invitation to be in the world with the trust, awe and presence of a child. There’s a Dad texting for over 10 minutes on his phone, to the right of me. I think how tragic it is that we need to give a mandatory message to turn phones off. That the culture of being present to live performers, to our partners and our children, to live life, needs to be reiterated. Author of Tiny Habits, BJ Fogg, talks about the fact once upon a time we smoked inside and now we know better. He talks of a future when we make sure we are never on our phone in the company of another. Here’s to a cyber responsible world.

This sweet, succinct wee show makes us laugh out loud, dance in our seats and want to join in the Play. It’s the perfect blend of ridiculous and miraculous, like a magic show-cum-physical comedy.

Several youngsters join in during the half hour. Sometimes dancing, other times stamping their feet in time to ‘Ronda Alla Turca’, now beating the velvet with perfect rhythmed hands, and finally as the show winds up to a disco-of-sorts-climax, these nappy wearing 2 and 3 year olds with wide grins and happy feet circle the perimeter of the space, dancing their hearts out, until the music and therefore piece comes to end.

Our performers seem to magic themselves off the stage in a metaphoric ‘Poof’.
“Is it done Mum? The whole show, all of it?”

The plaid shirt lad, is now upstage centre, looking wistfully to the stage door, eyes imploring: “Are you coming back to play?” 

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