Storybook Live!
An exercise in expanding the human imagination and spirit.
As the principal artist of this collaborative production and the sole performer on stage, Ramesh Meyyappan brings a palpable sense of wonder to his work. The audience is sucked in right from the beginning as a projector casts the silhouettes of four distinct figures against the upstage wall, wordlessly but effectively introducing us to the characters in the story about to unfold. Meyyappan does not merely play these characters; he becomes each one of them in turn, making the transition from well-coiffed mother to young, free-spirited but disillusioned son as seamlessly as the live piano music integrates itself with the action onstage.
Snails & Ketchup is inspired by Italo Calvino's novel The Baron in the Trees, and tells the dark tale of a dysfunctional family of four, in which the son finds refuge from family violence in a nearby forest. It is here that he discovers the snails of the title and develops an affinity for these creatures, until they are hunted down by his sadistic sister as she plans a family dinner. The boy refuses to partake of this meal in which his snail-friends are a main ingredient, an act of defiance that leads his egotistical and uncompassionate father to force-feed him the snails that his sister has prepared. Unable to live under the same roof as his family any longer, the boy escapes and decides to make the forest his own home away from home. Woven through this storyline are larger and darker themes of violence, love, and ultimately, death.
Amongst all these characters that Meyyappan embodies, the mother stands out as the most complex creation. Her demonstrations of motherly tenderness manifest themselves in fascinating and disturbing ways: after giving birth to her twins in the presence of her unhelpful husband, she cradles them close as one expects a mother would, and then, overwhelmed by their crying, proceeds to sew up their gaping mouths with her needle and thread. These instruments become a symbol of both healing and destruction throughout the play – she stitches up her son's hand when it is cut by his father's sword, and later also uses her needle as a defensive weapon against her husband's unwanted sexual advances.
Indeed, the violence in this performance is almost (Tim) Burtonesque; unreal because the human characters seem to have stepped out of a storybook, yet no less horrifying for that. Collective gasps could be heard from the audience more than once, in response to another surprising twist of events, or to the effortless beauty of another tableau created by one man amidst a simple but ingenious set design. Hanging ropes are all we need to believe that we are amongst the trees, and with the help of the lights, the audience is easily transported between forest and home without any need for physical scene changes at all.
The music helps, though. Positioned where he can see the performance and take his cues from Meyyappan, but just out of the audience's sight, Tze's piano playing is instrumental in shaping the story. His compositions reveal not just an understanding of the work, but also a respect for and sensitivity to its nuances. There is nothing contrived about how he creates a theme for each character; rather he succeeds in his aim of having the music breathe along with the play, striking an elusive balance between subtlety and significance.
Unlike the dysfunctional family onstagee, the creative team clearly worked incredibly well together to devise this performance. From the projected snippets of animation to the aerial choreography of Meyyappan on the ropes, all the technical aspects served to successfully carry the performance and to make it as powerfully poignant as it could be. My only grouse would be the tendency for the lighting to get too dark at times, which results in the audience missing out on the performer's extremely varied facial expressions.
In essence, Ramesh Meyyappan is a living testament to the inherent magic of the theatre, having truly mastered the precise craft of "showing, not telling". A multi-faceted deaf theatre practitioner who successfully uses a range of visual and physical theatre styles (this is his first foray into aerial technique and choreography), he has toured his work internationally for the past ten years to much critical acclaim. His most recent performance here, Gin and Tonic and Passing Trains, garnered him the Best Actor award at the Singapore Life! Theatre Awards. Even though Snails is still a work-in-progress at this stage, Meyyappan has once again more than delivered with this production, which is set to be further developed for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival next year. Snails & Ketchup, while true to the minimalist spirit of The Studios series currently playing at the Esplanade, is so much more than a compelling visual performance – it is an exercise in expanding the human imagination and spirit.