Fringe Online 2020
Siddhartha’s Stone
Alena Skalova
Genre: Fringe Online Performance, Puppetry
Venue: Wandsworth Arts Fringe
Festival: Fringe Online
Low Down
This is a storytelling short where the supposition of a stone falling through water is visually connected to Siddhartha’s (Buddha) travelling through the affairs of the world. We witness a bird pick up a stone and drop it into water. It is then being held and helped by hand to drop whilst the creatures of the sea move out of the way as its trajectory goes downward to the bottom.
Review
This is a five minute short that seeks to show us visually with an accompanying voice over a journey where the traveller has little by way of purpose but the greatest of all reasons; learning.
The set is like a child’s crafted scene but to an adult level; its simplicity is part of the charm. A voice over eventually takes us through the context. The context doesn’t always match the visual as the slow drop by hand has both the clumsiness of an inability to freeze the motion and follow at a higher definition, but it also underpins the simplicity of the story.
There are some issues visually as the beginning as a hand is clearly visible at the side though once we are past the pretence the puppetry is in front of us and we can accept without question what we are seeing – all hands are there to be seen.
I was very much charmed by this short and found it one which gave me the ideals well with a story that has few places to go but much to tell in the distance it travels.
