The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon

Don Zolidis is a prolific author who has published over 100 plays, and “The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon” is an aggregation of all 209 Grimm fairy tales (with some tales featuring rather more prominently than others).  There are 43 separate roles in all, so the eight members of the company had plenty of opportunity to demonstrate their skills in characterisation as they switched rapidly between narration duties and various princes, princesses and fantastical creatures.  In order to cope with the rapid transitions between roles, and no doubt to save on what would otherwise have been an astronomical costume budget, the actors were dressed in black and depended on a few accessories (crowns, wigs, cloaks and so forth) to help the audience to distinguish between the different characters they portrayed.  The set – a bookcase, with a few movable blocks covered with vinyls of books on shelves – was also very flexible, with the blocks moved around to represent high towers, beds, gingerbread houses and much else besides.

The lighting design was simple but effective, and the intimate scale of the venue meant that every word could be heard.  The array of costume fragments and properties, and particularly the wigs, drove the definition and delineation of many of the fairy tale characters, and I particularly liked the hobbyhorse that featured in the extract from Cinderella.  You’d have thought that cramming 209 tales into a little under two hours would be challenge enough, but the evening concluded with a two minute scamper through what we’d seen, which showed the company off at its best: pacey dialogue, fast cues, quick transformations and a real ensemble feel.

This is conceptually an attractive work to stage as it features a host of familiar and interesting characters, and has an episodic structure that rewards flexible staging and an ensemble approach.  However, I felt that the less successful aspects of the production were down to the writing: some of the dialogue seemed laboured because it wasn’t well written rather than because it wasn’t well spoken, and one or two of the ideas in the script, such as having a narrator throw up in the first scene, didn’t really set the right tone.  The company seemed to become more comfortable with portraying actors playing roles as the evening went on, although I would have liked to have seen more careful use of enunciation, vocal tone and dramatic gestures to make the different levels of performance clearer.

That said, this was an entertaining production with much to admire and enjoy.  The ensemble really grew into the concept and characters, and the challenge of squeezing so many tales into so little time meant that the action held the audience’s interest throughout.  The Maidenhead Drama Guild is fortunate to have so much talent within its ranks.

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