Innocence and Experience, Waterloo East Theatre.

By Gwenni Hawkins

Innocence and Experience is an ambitious piece of musical puppetry theatre, set to Ralph Vaughan-Williams’ song cycle that uses poems from William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience as its lyrics. The piece is presented by Indomitable Productions, who deserve praise for the talent involved, and the original and imaginative treatment of familiar texts and melodies.

Particular praise must be singled out for Guy Withers. His angelic voice and engaged and animated facial expressions gave the piece a solid cohesion and gravitas. He alone seemed to dictate the change in tone, which was subsequently echoed by the other elements of the piece- the live oboist, choreographed movement and puppetry. None of these elements were weak- in fact, the sheer range of talent displayed was astounding. The puppetry, particularly that of Joni-Rae Carrack was exceptionally moving, and showed how there is room in contemporary theatre for a blending of genres. The crucial bind that was missing was the relevance to all of the disparate elements to each other, and to the story.

The subject of the piece was meant to convey the story of a childless couple and their journey through the adoption process. Indomitable Productions attempt to ‘discuss and explore’ the challenges and realities of the adoption process, an undeniably worthwhile endeavor, but a bit more of a connection between the choice of Vaughan Williams’ music and Blake’s lyrics was needed to justify this choice to tell the tale. Further development with this in mind would result in a much stronger, more convincing piece, which would better communicate the aims and objectives of the company. Considering that Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience was originally multimedia, it is not necessarily the wrong choice, and a future for Innocence and Experience seems strong.

With a running time of forty minutes, perhaps a reason for the occasional confusion was that the piece was simply too short to convey its narrative. And it is a credit to the piece that I left feeling that it could have been twice the length, and would have been more compelling for it.

In short: a skilled execution of a sometimes unclear premise, which would benefit from further development to live up to the promise of the talent involved.

@PostScriptJour

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