Spare Parts is a puppet theatre that caters to all ages, and The Night Zoo is one for the littlies. Remounted after its 2009 season and some time on the road, it’s a popular show that has been over east and around Western Australia, and will no doubt travel some more. A lively but repetitive show with beautiful puppets and a straight-forward set, it is far from the best work produced by the Fremantle puppet theatre, but is at least a safe bet for little kids.
The star of The Night Zoo is Jamie, a lonely little girl who lives in an apartment in a city. It’s a place that is hard, noisy and cruelly devoid of animals, so she watches the birds and longs for a pet she can interact with. When her parents refuse her a dog, she dreams of being spirited away to a nighttime zoo, where she can play with all the animals and make them her friends.
It’s an overly simplistic story with a convenient ending and little development to speak of. The set and animations lack magic and there is a lot of repetition to the story, which makes some sense considering the age group of its target audience – 3 and above – but which also could have been met with broader ambition and imagination. The best Spare Parts shows are those that take their audiences seriously, regardless of age. This one does to an extent, but still leans a little too heavily on easy devices.
Fortunately, The Night Zoo is saved by its puppets and its music. Lee Buddle has provided a lively soundtrack that can swell with loneliness or bounce with exuberance, depending on the occasion, while Iona McAuley’s puppet design is artful and clever. The story is told and the puppets wrangled by Sarah Nelson and Ben Mortley, who are occasionally shrill and reticent respectively, but are overall very tight and tidy in their performances. Some of the animals are masks, others are full suits, and Nelson and Mortley plunge in bodily, skillfully breathing life and personality into a huge raft of different characters.
If you have small children to entertain and don’t mind sitting through 45 minutes of colour, The Night Zoo is a good school holidays option. It’s not an extraordinary show, but it is lovely, and fast-paced enough to hold focus.
Rating: 2.5 our of 5 stars
The Night Zoo
Writer/Director: Michael Barlow
Performers: Sarah Nelson and Ben Mortley
Designer: Iona McAuley
Assistant Designer: Matt McVeigh
Composer: Lee Buddle
Lighting Designer: Romi Poonoosamy
Production Manager: Elliot Chambers
