BWW Reviews: THE MAGIC CHICKEN Survives a Night in a Chaotic Kitchen

Reviewed Tuesday 22nd April 2014

For the April school holidays the Adelaide Festival Centre is presenting New Zealand's Theatre Beating, performing in the Dunstan Playhouse with their hilarious production, The Magic Chicken. This show is just as much for the big kids as the little ones, and it generates constant laughter, interrupted only by occasional applause.

Trygve Wakenshaw and Barnie Duncan, the co-creators of the show, play the two white-faced chefs, Collins and Toot, respectively. The physical contrast between Wakenshaw, who is very tall and slim, made even taller by wearing the highest chefs' hat you will ever see, and Duncan, who is shorter, and kept looking that way by wearing a floppy cooks' hat, leads to some fun movements and interactions. Everything is mimed, but the production encompassed a wide rage of techniques, skills, and styles. It is highly choreographed, draws on elements of Commedia del Arte, clowning, acrobatics, slapstick, and much more. An element of conflict arises between the two when the chicken arrives and Collins favours cooking it, while Toot prefers it as a pet.

Unfortunately for the two hapless cooks, they have only one customer, Evil Eric, played by Kai Smythe. Arriving just after they have given up hope of customers and turned out the lights, the two chefs swing into action, but soon find that their unpleasant customer is very demanding. Smythe is also the only character who speaks, and that is only a single word, on three or four occasions. He decides that he is going to steal the chicken, and that takes the already complex and clever choreography to an even higher level.

Then there is the chicken, Ethel Heihei, who just happens to lay golden eggs. Oliver Smart is the banraku style puppeteer who brings Ethel to quirky life. He is dressed from head to toe in black, looking like a Ninja, and his control of the puppet is superb, making the chicken far more sentient than the average bird and creating believable interaction with the other three.

Director, Geoff Pinfield, couldn't possibly have added any more pace, or made it any funnier than it already is. He also subtly references the great silent film comedians, like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. Brad Knewstubb's cartoon like set design suits the antics of the performers beautifully, and Nik Janiurek's lighting design adds extra touches such as the blistering heat from the oven, or the cold light from the glass door walk in freezer.

With great effort I have tried to avoid any kitchen, food, or poultry puns and references, but one is unavoidable as the amazingly talented and entertaining two man band is known as The Beat Root Boys. Multi-instrumentalists, Matthew Armitage and John Bell, provide not only the incidental music, composed by Drew McMillain, but also all of the sound effects, and are a quite show in themselves, as they quickly switch instruments time and again, creating a vast range of sounds. Drums, keyboard, tenor saxophone, guitar, and tenor horn, occasionally give way to such things as Swanee whistle, kazoo, and harmonica.

Putting it all together, this is a joyous performance that brings happiness to every person in the theatre, the excited chattering and wide smiles on all of the faces in the foyer after the performance, showing just how much people had enjoyed it. Your kids will love you dearly if you take them to this hilarious and exceptionally imaginative production, and the good thing is that you'll thoroughly enjoy it too.

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