There’s something about the guest-less hotel that features in The Kitchen at the End of the World that reminds me of The Grand Budapest Hotel. It has the same sense of isolation and a craving to preserve the past from the ravages of contemporary urban life.

At the end of the kitchen garden of the hotel is the beginning of “the Vastness,” which is seen by the characters as a place where life is busy but empty.

The marionettes who tell the story are attracted and repelled by life in the Vastness but they cannot venture there because of their strings. There’s a running joke about their problems with their strings. The young lovers, Isaac and Penelope, are wary of kissing because of getting tangled in them.

Will the hotel owner find new guests? Will the elderly cook adapt to a brave new world? Will the old man who wanders into the hotel and is rudely rejected by the robotic, fussy manager be discovered after the kindly cook feeds him and hides him away?

And then there are young Isaac, and old Orpheus and Leon who are musicians who compose the last song because all the possible original combinations of words and musical notes are about to come to an end forever.

It’s a strange, slightly disjointed story that evokes feelings of nostalgia and warmth for old values, while at the same time provoking sympathy for the one character who dares to break free by losing strings in order to venture into an uncertain future.

It’s not what you would expect of a marionette play and would most likely confuse the very young even though they would certainly be enthralled by the artistry of the puppeteers, Alison Walls, Catherine Swallow and William Connor, who pull the strings and provide the voices.

They are supported by the colourful settings, miniature props and the detailed marionette designs by Steffen Kreft, and by Phill Jones’s music and nicely timed sound effects.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

It is intriguing to contemplate what makes a puppet show work a treat when you sense that if the same story was staged as a play with full-sized actors, or made as a film shot on location, it may seem rather simplistic, prosaic even.

A tired traveller, James Thoreau, has trekked from the cluttered city to a forgotten hotel “at the edge of the Vastness”; the one that houses the titular kitchen. He encounters Penelope Goldsworth, the pregnant daughter of the hotelier; Izaac, her musician-cum-bellboy boyfriend; Mr Thinley the pernickety manager; Mr Goldsworth, the grieving hotelier and neglectful father; and the kindly Cook who has sustained them from her kitchen garden even though “no-one has booked in for 100 years” – a touch of poetic hyperbole or magic realism (given the staff have not aged that much), take your pick.

Also germane to the story are Orpheus the poet, Leon the mathematician and Andronica Burnscoop from CityMedia. Thoreau’s stasis is offset by the Penelope /Izaac love story which in turn is challenged by Isaac and his mates becoming preoccupied with composing the last possible song. You have to see it – and I heartily recommend you do – to understand how this comes to pass.  

William Connor’s script, recently developed since its 2012 debut in Greytown, has Thoreau narrating the story retrospectively. He has observed and now reports what’s happened in a time past but, in the re-enactments, he doesn’t influence the action in any significant way. This, of course, is correct behaviour for a professional reporter but as a character in an unfolding drama he is rather more passive than he could be.

In literal terms, as an unofficial guest – thanks to the Cook – Thoreau does earn his keep by fixing broken windows and things, off stage. I suppose one could say the story turns out to have had a material effect on him even if not vice versa. Perhaps the idea is that, like his 19^th century American namesake, he is there to invite us to philosophise on the events he observes. Even so, I can’t help but wonder if more dramatic tension would arise from the story unfolding through present action without narration, so that everyone is experiencing what happens for the first time.  

The flat-walled setting, behind which the three puppeteers – William Connor, Catherine Swallow and Alison Walls – stand, depicts a fir-tree forest, the hotel lobby, the kitchen and the kitchen garden. An upper level is used as the Mr Goldsworth’s office and the hotel’s accommodation wing in the background has practical shutters which open to reveal Thoreau at one point. No designer is credited but Kelly Spencer has done a splendid job of painting it, and Stage Manager Anke Szczepanski and Stage Hand Freya Davies are very efficient at setting and striking miniature furniture and the odd prop.

Director Steffen Kreft has lovingly created the 9 marionettes, each with strongly characterised faces although the eyes are rather vacant. Nevertheless the three actors enliven them with well differentiated voices. It has to be said, though, that marionettes and the least agile and expressive puppet genre while being the most labour-intensive in their making, maintenance and operation. We therefore have to project a lot of our own humanity onto them – and we feel a special delight when the puppets’ expressions appear to change, as happens a few times here. This, I think, largely answers my initial question.

Jen Lal’s subtle lighting is enormously effective in helping to bring the characters and stories alive, and her aurora lights are a poetic treat.  Phill Jones’ music, much of it performed live, supports the moods beautifully while enhancing the story’s rhythm and flow.

In essence the Vastness at the End of the World represents the great unknown beyond our present lives, to which everyone has a different response. The characters’ meta-theatrical acknowledgement that they are marionettes with strings attached that simultaneously bring them to life yet restrict them is both amusing and thought-provoking.

So the hotel houses people who may or may not decide to move on from it, or freely choose it as their preferred lifestyle. In witnessing what happens with these characters, we get to consider our own positions. That’s a good result from 75 minutes of engagement at human, metaphysical and meta-theatrical levels.

While this is an adult puppet show it should appeal to anyone from, say, 11 upwards. 

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

Actors are sometimes asked (by non-actors), “How do you remember all those words?” And they would answer they just do; it’s the least impressive part of their job, however remarkable it may seem. I have to presume the same is true of puppeteering, however impressive it may be that they don’t get their strings all tied up.

And (as a non-puppeteer) I am impressed with the intricate skills of Alison Walls, William Connor and Catherine Swallow. What’s more, they have a great many lines to remember, and just the three of them play nine characters in this full-length drama.

The marionettes are expertly constructed (by the show’s director, Steffen Kreft), dressed in character-revealing detail, and capable of fine nuances of gesture and body language.

In a clever conceit of self-referencing, they never pretend to represent flesh-and-blood human beings, frequently referring to themselves as marionettes, with a nice running gag about their strings becoming brittle with age, looking slender etc.

But The Kitchen At The End Of The World is an allegory, and the story is intended to throw light on the human condition and the issues and concerns of our world. In this context I suppose the strings might represent the thread of Life, but I wouldn’t want to tie it down.

They are also, quite clearly, an alienation device – a way of reminding the audience of the artifice of the work and that we are sitting in a theatre watching a very adroit (and plainly visible) trio of puppeteers manipulate some marionettes across a stage. And this works perfectly well.

I enjoy watching the mechanics of the performance. I even like the scene changes – slide in a length of fibreboard, flip over a scenery flat, repo the puppeteers, and in a few short seconds a whole new level is created to represent the upper floor of a hotel. Meanwhile, the constantly busy musician/sound-effects creator performs a haunting theme to further ease the transition.

I particularly enjoy the work of Phill Jones in providing a continual bed of sonic support for this production. His mix of live guitar and pre-recorded loops has an impressionistic quality, with an almost cavernous reverb at times. His sound effects are subtly underplayed – a falling pot-lid, a crackling kitchen stove, the squeaking of a glass being polished.

Director Steffen Kreft has been at some pains, I suspect, to maintain this underplayed quality throughout, often to good effect. His scenic panels manage to be small and simple (the lighting isolating each one in turn to create distinct scenes) and yet cumulatively filmic in scope.

But when applied to the performances, it results in a curiously desultory acting style that leaves me feeling uninvolved. However impressed I may be with the dexterity of the marionette work (and I am), however charming the sets and the scenery (and they are), I could do with a bolder acting style. Too often, as an audience member, I feel that my murmurs of appreciation and gentle laughter are expressing a kind of “I get what you’re doing there” response, rather than indicating my immersion in the world of the play.

And it’s not the alienation thing. Shakespeare (who, like Brecht, was right into the Verfremdungseffekt)consistently reminded his audiences that they were in a theatre, that his story was not very credible, that there was a nasty smell coming from the pit; but he had the cheek to insist that the audience believe in what they were seeing onstage.

You have to throw everything you’ve got at it, if you want to pull this off, and I think the cast of The Kitchen At The End Of The World needs to be more vocally dynamic, cheekier, create bigger characters, and show off a bit more, to help the audience lose themselves in the story. 

And it’s a pretty good story. The writer, William Connor, has spun a nicely constructed tale that deals with the nature of creativity (artistic and procreative), obsolescence, the synthesising of food, and the media appropriation of just about everything. There are some good jokes to enjoy, some genuinely affecting moments, and an effect near the end that has the makings of a real coup de théâtre.

This was Opening Night, and the performers will soon gain more mastery over their material. I hope they will also break out of their low-key, somewhat awkward acting style and give the play the dynamic performances it warrants. Just because they’re puppets, it doesn’t have to be wooden.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer