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Poor Thing - Review

By Alistair Maxwell

Anyone who has ever moved house understands the immense psychic power of the stuff you accumulate over time. It’s not just a bright yellow plastic doll’s house chair, it’s a vessel that beloved childhood memories sit on. It’s not just a tankard, it’s a souvenir. It’s not just a porcelain ornament, it’s symbolic of us when we were young. But you can’t take it all with you. Every trinket and knick-knack becomes subject to rigorous vetting: “Is it useful? Is it beautiful? Is there room? Do I NEED it?”. The process grows more complicated when it’s a deceased belongings that are being moved. “Is it useful? Well… it might have been to them? Is it beautiful? Well, maybe they liked it?”. The word “souvenir” has its roots in the French for “to remember”. Without all our knick-knacks and trinkets, how much is there to remember? Would disposing of it be the same as forgetting? Or does it all hinge on the person who owned and had those memories?

In Poor Thing VOX Muziektheater have set out to write the secret history of a bunch of stuff, and the story of the woman who once tied it all together. Punto Bawono bathes the scene in relaxing 17^th century lute music, whilst Linde Schinke and Martine van Ditzhuyzen anarchically dig through the bric-a-brac of the deceased women they have christened Janet.

The centrepiece of the set is a large wooden dresser, inventively modified to be almost entirely malleable. Doors and shelves can be attached and removed at will allowing the performers to create small still-life exhibitions about Janet’s life. It also allows them to pop in and out of the dresser like a non-violent Punch and Judy show. The tall, enigmatic Schinke is a talented classical singer capable of dropping a beautiful aria or a powerful lament at a moment’s notice. Whilst the cheeky, feisty van Ditzhuyzen scuttles around comically undermining everything and making us aware that as much as they are celebrating the life of the mysterious Janet by reinventing her possessions, they are still playing with her toys.

One of the most captivating ideas in Poor Thing is that with a little imagination every car boot sale, coffee morning stall or charity shop table is as good as a 17^th century still life. It is possible to join the dots of possessions and glimpse the person that joins them. One of the earliest scenes in the show is the funeral. A noble ceremony in which possessions are cloaked in knick-knacks and laid to rest on the downstage-centre scrapheap. It’s a moving feat and the cast hold this little ritual with such grace and esteem that it is quite emotional. By starting at the end, as it were, all that is left is the life, and therefore the aforementioned ‘stuff’. Janet’s life never seemed larger than any of her tin-pot possessions but that’s what makes it so compelling; her things are familiar, imbued with the same memories we have.

Janet’s vignettes are charming and sentimental. It’s easy to forget she’s not real because the stuff that represents her is. On occasions the performers will touch an object and are shocked into singing, becoming conduits for the stories lurking in simple bric-a-brac. Why does the yellow plastic dolls’ house chair conjure up memories of Yellow Submarine? It’s never explained but it is as daft and as human as any other connection a person has to their material possessions. The zeal with which the cast burst into life when the memories flow through them is palpable. Poor Thing is a show that understands that there is a little magic in everything and that everything has value if we know it’s story - be it a flea-market find, anniversary present or an unwanted gift. Everything in every home has an origin story; some simple, some wild and ancient. It’s a beautiful, moving show capable of convincing anyone never to throw anything out again.