Vélo Théâtre - “There’s a Rabbit in the Moon”

Old Market Arts Centre, Hove
Brighton Festival - May 2006

Reviewed by Penny Francis

A long-established company founded in the south of France by Charlot Lemoine and Tania Castaing... Some years ago I admired them for their delicacy, poetry and wit, and the sensitive clowning of Charlot, the principal performer in all their shows. Some will remember Envelopes et Deballages (Packing and Unpacking) in which a postman finds all the packages on his delivery bicycle (there’s always a cycle, a vélo, of some kind) breaking open to fill the stage with a landscape; and Appel d’Air (Call of the Wind – both inadequate translations), a beautiful example of a theatre of objects.

The company has not lost its touch: Y’a un Lapin dans la Lune (There’s a Rabbit in the Moon) is a delight for children and parents alike (No adult without a child, the programme says severely). It’s full of tension, relaxed and inconsequential, solemn and funny. Silence features loudly. The children were fascinated and still as mice.

They saw a slightly mad gentleman called Tomás Snout who seemed to embody the night. All in black, with an old dusty top hat, he steps out of a wardrobe into a high black circular space. He produces from his pockets, and from a ‘soft round white night’, a padded half moon strapped on a trike, a number of objects with their attendant sounds –a watch, a key, a tiny dancer, a Mercedes Benz, stars, a fish, a trombone, black bits of paper which represent fears which he will dispel. His angular, precise movements and melancholy, anxious face are perfectly controlled, until he responds to a child and smiles, his warmth brightening his eyes.

‘People whisper at night to be sure the stars won’t hear them’ he says. It’s a very quiet show, and is not afraid to use silence and subtleties of sound to great theatrical effect. There are few words. ‘Sometimes night can be a real nightmare!’ he says when a tiny house gets invaded by a dog, a saw, a bigger fish. Halfway through he tells the story of the Tin Soldier, and the fish which has eaten him turns into a skeleton of itself. It has to be buried; a coffin is prepared and the children are asked to put in one of the black pieces of paper as one of their fears, to be buried forever (their fears were quite heavy – fear of losing a relative, fear of drowning). The coffin is a battered instrument case and when closed the propeller on the front revolves to drive it away.

We all leave when the Rabbit has been found in the Moon-Drum. Its ears point the way out through the wardrobe and we exit and hand back our pyjamas. Maybe the children will never again be afraid of the dark, thinking of Mr. Snout and all his Things. Or maybe they’ll think of the fish skeleton and the buried fears, and shiver a little.