Hard Times — Good Times For Audience

Produced by Puppetmongers in Association with Night Kitchen Theatre and Theatre Passe Muraille
Written and Directed by Chris Earle

Ann Powell and Anand Rajaram. Photo by Aviva Armour-Ostroff

Charles Dickens actively campaigned for social reform and fought against social injustice. His tenth novel, Hard Times – For These Times echoes these usual sentiments and contains themes that ring true today. Economists insist the current crisis is over, however there are still signs that we are not yet a ”prosperous country” again. The “peasantry” of today are still the forgotten and lost souls by the authorities and nobles of the modern world. Hard Times written by Chris Earle and produced by Puppetmongers is an abridged version of the Victorian era classic that has been transformed into an incredibly imaginative theatrical production.

Through set placement, the Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace has been made noticably smaller for this production. We quickly learned this was due to the puppetry workshop, that we occasionally got a glimpse of backstage, which takes up half of the playing space. This did not take away from the surroundings, it only added to the intimate atmosphere. When the show got underway we couldn’t take our eyes from the players, but soon our focus shifted away from them and the puppets came alive. By using different mediums (half and full masks, an array of props, shadow puppets, etc.) and sharing the roles, the three multi-talented performers, Ann Powell, David Powell and Anand Rajaram give the cast of over a dozen characters an authentic life of their own. We never thought a grown man standing behind and voicing a “child puppet” would work so well, but we were captivated and emotionally affected on behalf of every character. It doesn’t matter that various players express Louisa’s fear and anxiety, it is always Louisa’s voice and emotions that we hear.

David Powell. Photo by Aviva Armour-Ostroff.

The artistic cast are very gifted voice and physical actors as well as puppeteers; surprisingly, minor movements of the puppets and actors were able to illuminate deep sentiment. The actors’ accents were spot on; even without the visual clues, the audience could tell the class of speaker just by listening. We were quite moved by the down-and-out mill worker’s rousing soliloquy about how the way to appease the masses is not to treat them as the masses. Even though there is an incredible amount of complicated set, prop and lighting changes, the show is consistently entertaining. The players are constantly performing and the music and sound between scenes helped set the Victorian era tone.

In the end it was a truly moving presentation of a Dickens tale. Why are children so enthralled and delighted by the puppet shows of their youth? For the same reasons that we were enthralled and delighted by this fascinating production. Hard Times runs until October 16, 2010. Visit the Theatre Passe Muraille website for more information or artsboxoffice.ca to buy tickets.

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