Spare Parts Puppet Theatre’s season of Hare Brain was a tonic to watch, a reminder of both the sheer joy of imaginative play and the longevity of one of Australia’s precious institutions.
First, the longevity – Hare Brain, written by Justin Cheek, was conceived before one of its two current performers, Oliver Hughes, was even born. It has toured Australia several times, been to Singapore and had around six revivals, all under the deft direction of Spare Parts’ artistic director Philip Mitchell. Yet this 22-year-old repertoire classic remained fresh and topical for a young audience two decades later.
Hare Brain’s theme was as clear as the Aesop’s fable on which it is based. This is partly because the parable was told at least twice, first by Toulouse (Daniel Dosek), the meditating cleaner who upended a mop bucket to depict Aesop’s tortoise and fashioned floppy ears from a white plastic bag for the hare.
Toulouse cleared the top of his cleaner’s trolley and harnessed his vacuum cleaner, brooms and water spray bottle to stage the fabled race between a slowly-but-surely tortoise and an always rushing hare. Hare was seduced into stopping and resting when he passed through a veggie patch, until he woke up and saw Tortoise lumber over the winner’s line.
Then there was the parallel story of Harry (the marvellously impish Hughes), a manic salesman copywriter with a suitcase of garish off-the-shelf stuffed toys and his competitive race against the gentler Toulouse and his world of improvised fun.
There was endless delight for both young and old audience members as make-do mundane objects were transformed. A graceful turtle figure materialised from a water cooler barrel body, a coiled tubing neck, four blue rubber gloves for flippers and two scoops for a beak. In the mind’s eye, all elements were transformed into a gliding creature that playfully grazed on a “mophead” coral reef.
Elsewhere, the water cooler bottles became space helmets for cosmic brainstorming. The brilliance of Spare Parts’ puppet and set creators Cecile Williams and Jiri Zmitko was matched by lively musical composition from composer-musician Lee Buddle.
Hare Brain ended with a hilarious sword/broom/mop fight, a truce and an embrace of friendship.
At a time when children are passively glued to screens with preset animation, it’s hard not to feel exhilarated watching them absorbed in a living, breathing theatre show. They shouted warnings when smoke wafted out of the cleaner’s gadget-filled trolley. They became active agents in the narrative and their reactions in turn primed the performers’ live responses. No digital content can do that.
Spare Parts has survived and thrived for 43 years, despite all kinds of adversity and the neglect of governments, local and state, in properly supporting this exemplary company. Yet it is making optimistic plans for a new theatre inside its “temporary” home at Perth’s Claremont Showgrounds, after its Fremantle premises were condemned. And with Hare Brain’s school holiday season now over, work will begin on an exciting program of giant puppets and brand new shows by leading WA creators.
Read: Theatre review: Elegies: A Song Cycle, fortyfivedownstairs
Like Hare Brain’s slow-but-steady tortoise hero, Spare Parts is a winning company that just keeps going.
Hare Brain
Spare Parts Puppet Theatre
Claremont Show Grounds, Perth
Hare Brain was performed 29 June to 13 July 2024.
