News
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Over the past decade, there has been a particular British dramaturgy, perhaps inspired by Cornwall’s Kneehigh company and director Emma Rice. Combining both a respect for canonical narratives – it frequently adapts a familiar novel or play – and an iconoclastic attitude towards structure and genre, this approach incorporates elements of physical and musical theatre, ensemble and devising techniques and, since the success of Warhorse, puppetry and visual theatre. Driven by energetic casts and willing to interpret those familiar stories, such as Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, it has been both commercially and critically approved with the Royal National Theatre (based in London) now touring examples of this aesthetic. Since it often adapts novels, it features both wry humour and tragedy, even breaking the fourth wall and invoking a less political but popular version of Brecht’s ‘total theatre’. Scenography and movement frequently drive the spectacle and dynamism of these productions.
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe fits in this tradition, although, as a show aimed at families, lacks some of the wittier asides and self-consciousness. There are moments of puppetry – the family cat, or passing poetic birds – that foreshadow the arrival of Aslan the Christ-like lion, which becomes both the most striking visual moment of the play and the aesthetic core of this adaptation.
CS Lewis’ novel was published in 1950, and has become a staple of British children’s literature: while its gender rigidity (the boys are knights, the girls are healers), Christian morality (Aslan is explicitly Christ-like, even dying to be resurrected) and World War II scenario of evacuation are beginning to date the work, its fantastic blend of mythology and naturalistic characterisation offers an imaginative adventure that charms and exhilarates. Michael Fentiman’s production does get caught in the plot – the second half rushes through the mythic drama, after spending much of the first half establishing both the mundanity of reality and the contrasting glamour of Narnia – but the gradual build-up to the arrival of Aslan ensures that the spectacular scenography, which recalls the visionary paintings of Blake in its vibrant celestial splendour, frames a moving and powerful use of the large puppet.
Aslan is represented by a human-sized marionette, a combination of bunraku and the traditional British ‘pantomime horse’ (although with more dignity than this implies), and an actor who has the frazzled glamour of a warrior from Lord of the Rings. This dualism elegantly echoes the character’s dual nature, an animal who remains majestic and dangerous, and a human giving voice to his stentorian message of hope through struggle. Lewis’ intention, to offer an allegory of Christ’s sacrifice against the context of European war, is manifested in this double role and the impressive appearance of the puppet is balanced by the regal tone of the actor. Aslan’s death is rendered all the more poignant by the immobility of the marionette and the scale of the puppet emphasises his overpowering presence beside the human performers.
The integration of the puppet is the result of the scenography conjuring the appropriate mystery and fantasy, while the relationship between the human and puppet adds a quiet dignity to the lion, fittingly for his redemptive role. Far from the puppet being mere spectacle, its inanimate presence enhances the allegorical power of the drama, and speaks both to Lewis’ metaphysical intent and the play’s desire to respect the magical milieu.
While the production is challenged by the old-fashioned values at the heart of the plot, it maintains the magical realism of the novel and, through the puppet and the musical numbers, races to a triumphant and metaphorically rich finale that reconciles the dowdy reality of World War II Britain and the imaginative, fecund and fantastic world of Narnia.
Gareth K Vile
