Edinburgh Fringe 2015
The Girl Who Fell in Love with the Moon
The Human Zoo Theatre Company
Genre: Physical Theatre
Venue: Pleasance Dome
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Using movement, live music, dance, and a little bit of puppetry The Human Zoo Theatre Company create a fun, intelligent piece of physical theatre.
Review
The Girl Who Fell in Love with the Moon is physical theatre with a lot of heart using live music, dance, movement, and a little bit of puppetry. Stranded at night in the woods a group of performers perform their show to the ‘non existent audience’. This show is comprised of shorter shows which all follow a celestial pattern written by Luna, the leader of their troop played by artistic director Florence O’ Mahony.
Luna gives a brief introduction to each member of the group, who are dressed in their colourful outfits and sporting the neat whiteface make up, to establish background on each and their personalities. Although the latter is not really necessary as their persona’s are evident in their performances it begins the show nicely.
The performances are very focused, and clearly thoroughly rehearsed. It is full of fun, and witty humour but in a very controlled way. Every aspect is tightly performed and is no way slapstick despite it’s silliness at times, it contains a lot more than that and conveys more than just pure entertainment.
The group of performers feel genuine and relatable and are like a family with O’Mahony playing Luna as the warm, intelligent mother figure to them all while Fleur Rooth as Scarlet is ditzy and is clearly the child of the group who irritates yet is mothered by them all, Rosalind Hoy as Selena has to be the older sister who is strong-willed and feels too cool for them all. Nick Gilbert as Clive with his grumpiness and wisdom is father material while Freddie Crossley as Jack, has the most adorable demeanour and could ether be the son who is often overlooked or the family pet they all take for granted.
There is such warmth and camaraderie between them all that feels so genuine and makes you want to be a member of their odd little group. Each mini show allows each to take the starring role and get equal stage time which each show being rooting amongst the stars in some way giving them a magical feel. The last show with Luna centre stage is where this performance gets its name and provides a sad, sweet ending.
This is a beautifully constructed piece, intelligently written and excellently performed, the stories within the performance are fun but all hold significant meaning while being wonderfully unique. The girl Who Fell in Love with the Moon is a very magical piece of theatre.
