Edinburgh Fringe 2018
The Little Musician
Brush Theatre LLC | Korean Season presented by AtoBiz Ltd
Genre: Children's Theatre, Family
Venue: Assembly Roxy
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
‘I will return sunshine to the dark cold world!’ In a world full of darkness, the warmth and light of the sun has gone missing. One girl, armed only with a flute, sets out on a brave adventure to find the lost sunshine. Join The Little Musician on her journey and help her to save the world from freezing!
Review
Musical instruments – electronic and percussion – are set up on both sides of the stage, and a white cloud hangs up high in this large theatre. A polar bear puppet appears and then jumps on the keyboard as musicians play upbeat music to start the show. The bear is joyful and having fun – this animated puppet captures the imagination and attention of children in the audience, immediately.
More characters follow, they sing, speak dialogue, dance, mime, and play a variety of quick-change characters in this interesting story about a little musician who is on an important mission to find the sun.
The set changes efficiently when performers bring on giant yellow or black triangles, which become a forest and more. The story continues when the actor playing a musician, who plays a flute, goes on adventures and we learn about the people and challenges she meets.
The cast of six is compelling and each performer is adept at mime, dance and gestural theatre. They swiftly move around the stage playing music, providing sound effects, switching characters and bringing on props, which is effective. There’s a tug of war with several characters, a mountain climber – these are effective moments with sound effects. Several scenes include spoken words and brief dialogue, but it is the silent physical acting and clever use of objects and props, with sound or music that is Brush Theatre’s strength.
Highlights of the physical and visual style are the camping scene, the blustery weather and the exciting storm imagery – the latter inventively incorporating swaths of transparent plastic.
There are some other well developed visual scenes in this show, which are humorous and physical – such as a well received group in white costumes bobbing and clucking – and as the run of this show progresses, no doubt the storytelling will benefit from the opportunity to hone its style.
In all, The Little Musician is a very good and interesting, imaginative family show with a compelling cast. The ensemble song at the end is a lovely way to finish the show – I heard people humming the tune as they were leaving the theatre – Recommended!