Richard Hurford’s new Play ‘Peach Boy’ takes the traditional Japanese folktale of Momotaro and adapts it for the stage in an excellent family performance of song, puppetry and action.
The only thing that let this production down was the singing. The use of song worked well within the script, bringing together ideas and characters in an ensemble of sound and movement. The use of the catchy refrain, the tone of which mirrored the tone of the action, also worked very well as an emotive and structural device. However, the quality of the singing itself did, sadly, jar. None of the cast had strong voices, rather their thin, reedy songs lacked diction and detracted from an otherwise superb production.
The physical acting of the cast was excellent. Togo Igawa’s direction created a wonderful, stylised and somewhat surreal world evoking the original Japanese folktale. By using fabrics to extend and embellish movements, slow motion and physical caricature the surreal spectacle became delicious to watch. The exaggerated acting, especially of Elliott Quinn as Momotaro, brought the stage to life with an addictive energy.
The fusion of acting with transparent puppetry was a delight. There was no pretence to hide the puppeteers who created quirky, stylised and likeable characters which added a surreal and occasionally disturbingly dark twist to the action. The plays second half lost some of the jollity and slapstick light heartedness of the first, taking on a darker vein, most notably in the stand out scene of the production where swarms of fireflies engulf Momotaro.
The set, although simple, proved itself wonderfully versatile through the use of only a few props. With entrances coming from behind the audience the division between stage and audience was broken. The superb lighting and sound helped transform the simple space from inside to out. The costumes were vibrant, taking the traditional Japanese clothing and using traditional iconography to maintain the stylised scheme.
This is definitely a production aimed at children. The characters speak to the level of children (an almost unspoken ‘boys and girls’ lingers unsaid at the end of the lines) the jokes are blatant, although funny judging by the reactions of the children there, and the interaction with the audience is excellent. One child felt so involved that she decided to warn Momotaro of an approaching monster by shouting, ‘He’s behind you!’ Yet, that was the only similarity to pantomime in this otherwise first-rate family production.
