Review: THE MOON'S A BALLOON Totally Captivated The Young Audience

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Tuesday 19th April 2016

Patch Theatre Company have taken the title of their current production, The Moon's a Balloon, from a poem by E. E. Cummings, written in his quirky way, missing spaces, ignoring capitalisation, and deliberately misspelling the word 'balloon'.

Who Knows If The Moon's.

who knows if the moon's
a baloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky-filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should

get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their baloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited,where

always
it's
Spring)and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves

The production is presented by the Adelaide Festival Centre in the Space Theatre and is suitable for children from four to eight years of age, but if you happen to be eighty, or even older, there is plenty in this excellent production to keep you entertained as well. My guest and I are both well over the age of eight, and we both loved every minute of it.

This delightful production was jointly created by Josh Bennett, Dave Brown, Morag Cook, David Gadsden, Rob Griffin, Roz Hervey and Katrina Lazaroff, and features Lazaroff, Griffin, and a large quantity of white balloons in assorted sizes.

Originally directed by Dave Brown, the remount director for this current tour is Naomi Edwards. With the design by Morag Cook, lighting by David Gadsden and projection by Dave Brown and Chris Petridis, there is are a lot of high profile contributors involved in every aspect of the production, and it certainly shows. Aside from the balloons, there are groupings of variously sized tubes around the stage. These turn out to be illuminated, triggered by dropping a balloon in, or when firing a balloon onto the stage. These raise more giggles as the performers react to them. It is all very cleverly designed to catch and keep the attention and it all works in so well with the superb work of Lazaroff and Griffin.

This is a piece of physical theatre and dance, with no spoken text, so even the youngest audience member can enjoy the visuals. If there is one word needed to describe this piece then 'playful' would be a good start. It suggests a slightly older girl playing with a younger boy, possibly a little brother. She plays games with him, such as holding out a balloon, snatching it away as he tries to take it, but eventually giving it to him when he seems to be getting upset. They chase one another to trying to steal balloons, or hide from one another to keep their balloons, and many more simple games.

Lazaroff and Griffin are both very physically flexible and most engaging performers, with loads of eye contact with the young audience, smiling at the things that they find to do with the balloons, like children discovering new things and, from the look of it, having the most fun of anybody in the theatre. The many ways they find to use the balloons if remarkable. If they had reached the end of the performance and foolishly asked if anybody wanted to come up and play with them and the balloons, they'd have surely been flattened in the rush, and probably have been forced to keep playing for hours. Somehow, though, I don't think they'd have complained.

Children in the audience were better behaved than many an adult audience I have endured in recent years, mainly because they could relate to everything that was happening and were totally enthralled by the two performers and the balloons that, at times, almost seem be alive. There was hardly any movement to be heard and barely a sound beyond laughter at the antics, and an occasional quiet happy whisper of appreciation. If that doesn't immediately tell you how incredibly good this is, then nothing that I write will suffice. Children are the most vicious critics in the world and have no qualms about saying what they think. They were universally riveted by this performance, and the final applause went on and on.

I wish that I had had a stall in the foyer selling white balloons after the performance, and I am willing to bet that adults have been searching their local shops trying to find packets of them ever since. Patch might have just started a new craze for youngsters in Adelaide. I am sure that there are also adults being begged to attend again. Get some tickets before they all go, because they will.

These videos will give you a very tiny hint of this wonderful performance.

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