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created by Michele Smith and Dean Gilmour and the company directed by Michele Smith and Dean Gilmour

Theatre Smith-Gilmour, Factory Studio Theatre, Toronto

February 23-March 21, 2010

"Tales of Wonder"

Theatre Smith-Gilmour has turned its illuminating eye to the short stories of Anton Chekhov, Katherine Mansfield and Lu Xun.  Now its turns its attention to much more basic stories--the folk-tales gathered by the Brothers Grimm in Germany and first published in 1812.  The result is a journey into a fantastic world that seems ordinary on the outside but in which anything can happen--men steal the moon, animals talk, children change themselves into flowers and buildings.  The underlying humour that Theatre Smith-Gilmour captures so well is the attitude of all the characters that takes the most incredible, even absurd occurrences as simply matters of fact.

The Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were pioneering linguists and lexicographers whose work led them to record stories from an oral tradition that would soon die out.  Their “Kinder- und Hausmärchen” (“Children’s and Household Tales”), better known under the misleading title “Grimm’s Fairy Tales”, was the first attempt to record folklore with some claim to fidelity to its source unlike the literary fairy tales that had already been written by Charles Perrault and Goethe.  For Theatre Smith-Gilmour it is this raw, folk aspect of the stories that is most important.  The stories appear as ancient mythological tales that have been filtered through generations of retellings into stories relevant to the tellers and their listeners.

“GRIMM Too” avoids all the most famous of the Grimms’ stories--“Cinderella”, “The Frog Prince”, “Hansel and Gretel”, “Rapunzel”, “Rumplestiltskin”, “Sleeping Beauty” and “Snow White”--for focus on ten lesser-known tales.  Dean Gilmour uses the first, “The Tale About the Land of Cockaigne” (#158 in the complete Grimm edition), as an introduction to the evening.  Entering through the audience to sit on the front of the stage, he is the theatre director as storyteller and the story he has to tells now and for the show’s 90 minutes is of a land of wonders.  Everything that is ordinary can do something extraordinary.  Mice consecrate a bishop, roast chickens fly, two suckling infants tell their mother to shut up.  This sets up the notion that in the world we are entering anything can happen.

This is confirmed in the very next story (#175) which is clearly a folk version of an older myth.  The world is generally without light at night except for one village which has a moon and a man who earns three thalers keeping it clean.  Two brother from another village are entranced by this wonderful object and decide to steal it for their own village.  If that selfishness were not enough, they decide they each want to be buried with half of it for themselves.  The natural order is thus disturbed and only set right by the invention of Saint Peter.

This tale exemplifies the marvellous theatricality that imbues the entire show.  Julia Tribe’s set is pitch black but include some hidden doors.  Her costumes evoke the Middle ages but with an Eastern influence.  Props are absolutely minimal.  Everything depends on the ability of acting and mime of the supremely talented company of five--Pragna Desai, Dean Gilmour, Adam Paolozza, Michele Smith and Dan Watson.  The moon is merely a lamp but the reactions of the characters turns it into a divine object.

Each actor has a chance to shine.  Gilmour is both hilarious and touching as Old Sultan, an aged dog whose master wants to shoot him.  Gilmour captures both the faithfulness and decrepitude of the poor beast.  Smith by merely turning round changes back and forth from a concerned mother to the annoyingly Wilful Child who won’t behave even when it’s dead and buried.  She is also delightful as the French narrator of “The Foundling” and as the horrid cook who seeks to kill the two children in her household.  Paolozza is absolutely wonderful as the title character of “Hans My Hedgehog”, a boy, half-man, half-hedgehog, whose embarrassed father hides him for eight years unto the creature decides to leave home.  Paolozza is adept at physical and verbal comedy and has a knack for imitation.  His Hans playing his favourite bagpipes has to be seen to be believed. As “The Ungrateful Son”, Dan Watson does an uproarious impression of a young man being attacked by a nasty frog, and of the gluttonous frog itself.  Desai reveals an inner strength in her much-wronged title character of “Saint Solicitous” and neatly distinguishes the two princesses in “Hans My Hedgehog”.

For Theatre Smith-Gilmour the theatre is a transformational space where an actor can be anybody or any thing in the blink of an eye.  The performances are so simple and so precise they make us feel that we haven’t lost our childlike sense of wonder.  We’ve merely forgotten it.  “GRIMM too” does us the the life-enhancing service of reminding us that we still have it within.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Pragna Desai and Dan Watson.