HANSEL AND GRETEL AT THE JUNCTION
Stefanie Mueller and Abayomi Onlyide as Hansel and Gretel with Martin Bonger and David Osmond as parents
Plays for children are sensitive. Everyone, from the director to the players are aware of their feelings and their fears. Children are very receptive to fun and sadness and the audience of young children for Hans and Gretel, in their party outfits on Saturday were ready for both. The cast came on with confidence, seasoned storytellers they set the scene, “A long time ago, a very long time ago in a country far away ( they canvas ideas for which one ) in let’s say the Czech republic. During a famine”.Skilled narrators and impressive musicians mdae a solid atmospheric start Nicholas (Martin Bonger who also plays double bass) and Nigel (the show’s musical director, David Osmond who also plays piano) are extremely hungry anchored as the parents in a dilemma.
The company sing a welcome and miss en scène
The story of Hansel and Gretel is, as the Director Alex Byrne admits in the programme, “a somewhat gruesome one”. And the set before us was indeed bleak, an NHS hospital bed lay centred stage and a sparse kitchen and a stove. Hansel as a lovable brave brother played with panache by Abayomi Oniyide and his sister a touchingly child-like Gretel was a perfect six-year-old in a delightful blend of optimism and sensibility played with skill by Stéfanie Mueller both hold doll versions of themselves. They are horribly hungry. And unhappy. Which is bad enough. But they overhear their rowing parents - only solution is to lead the children into the forest and leave them to their fate – starvation, or death by wild animals.
Martin Bonger and David Osmond, the driven parents
Essentially, as the Director admits, this is a horror story. In this production both the ‘parents’ are men : the only tenderness they show is for one another – and their own survival. Psychologically this gender role switch is a game changer. Who can be trusted? Who’s who? And where is the mother or as in the original version the stepmother? Hansel and Gretel are led into the forest, tricked into staying there and spend their time pitifully counting to 100 then 1000. It is stressful and worrying – for adults let alone children. Hansel’s ingenuity does get them home once, only for the heartless pair to take them off again (“Isn’t ascribing this to a gay couple homophobic?” my companion whispered “Both of them are useless in this crisis”) Then this long iteration begins all over again. By the interval we are back to the misery of isolation and abandonment, despite all the children’s cheerful chatter, they break down in despair.
At this point (or frankly) long before it, other characters should surely emerge to cheer them up and help them out. In Englebert Humperdinck’s version, the little Sandman appears covers them with leaves and magics them to sleep. And they pray. Can this small cast run to the Dew Fairy who then wakes them up lovingly much less the Vienna Boys Choir of angels ?. But why not ? Well perhaps not the full VBC , but this amazing company is remarkably ingenious and inventive. In their stupendously memorable Snow Queen (2021) ( see Cambridge Critique archive) little Gerda goes on a journey to rescue brother Kay from the clutches of the magnificent Snow Queen. On the way she meets the traditional quirky characters who help her along, even Santa Claus himself. And there is a chirpy chappy who joins her on the quest - the reassuring ordinary everyman children can identify with. Kay is rescued and they all come home to a lovely auntie baking scones.
In Hansel and Gretel, the children meet no one. In the second half there is a witch in an ingenious gingerbread house. Samantha Sutherland plays her with eccentric zeal and is an outstanding character. But the script then asks the audience to actually collude in Hansel’s treatment with suggestions for the kind of food to fatten him up “What else can I give him ?” I sensed unease in the audience. With Hansel imprisoned in a cage why should they help hasten his end?
Superb saxophone solo Samatha Sutherland who is also The Witch
Of course the children escape back to their cruel parents. One ( Nigel the most hard-hearted is now deranged and more resembles a character out of Strindberg } with regret they beg forgiveness. Despite the contrition ,it is unsatisfactory, the essential acknowledgment of evil as prescribed by child psychologist Bruno Bettleheim in Uses of Enchantment is absent. Why had it all happened? Who was to blame? The parents appear to get away with it and the children in this production are bewildered – and back where they were before. And worse, sort of in charge.
Music fabulous, but with only one wonderful saxophone solo as a stand out .Players amazing, but Hansel particularly undervalued, he is a massive presence and should get a whole raft of characters to play. But fundamentally the writer needs to find some solace for the children, invent some friends, add some colour, triple the players’ efforts and get going in the first act fast, the cruel expulsion from their home should be left behind in parade of reassuring adventures.
Or just re-do that ultra- fabulous Snow Queen again. It is the world class winner.
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