Review: The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real, balletLORENT
It’s one thing to pass on the recommendations of others but quite another thing to see for yourself.
And having seen for myself, over the heads of some very young children from a local primary school, I can say that The Velveteen Rabbit is very good indeed.
In fact, it’s excellent, probably one of the best things balletLORENT have ever done, although the tots at whom it is principally aimed won’t know about that.
It tells of a man preparing to clear the family home and dreaming of his boyhood games with the toys he’s about to dispose of.
Among them, and special, is the stuffed rabbit of the title whose charmed life informs the narrative.
Snubbed and derided by the mechanical toys in the nursery, the velveteen rabbit becomes real to the boy who loves him almost to destruction. But to the wild rabbits who find him when he’s lost in the garden, he’s not real at all.
It’s a gentle and magical story with appeal for all generations.
While its philosophical heart lies in the conversation between the velveteen rabbit and the skin horse, the latter, old and battered, explaining the nature of reality to the nursery newcomer, it is also laced with humour – more so here than in Margery Williams’s book.
The children laughed and clapped at the robot, the jack-in-the-box and the mechanical soldier with his bugle. A doll in an extraordinary pink dress pirouetted mechanically.
All the characters - humans, rabbits and toys - are brought to life with great charm and zest by the versatile dancers of balletLORENT as they emerge from cupboards or spring from toy boxes.
Liv Lorent’s inventive choreography is pitch perfect, conveying meaning and nuance through motion – although the pre-recorded narration and musical soundtrack complement it perfectly.
The costumes are wonderful, as is the deceptively simple set, and this being balletLORENT headquarters at the John Marley Centre in Newcastle, the loveliness spilled into the audience.
We all sat (well, some of the children reclined) on beautiful cushions made by the troupe of volunteer super-knitters who clearly take as much pride in their work as the dance company professionals.
On stage there’s no let-up in the action, not a minute passing from start to happy ending without a delightful visual surprise.
But when it ended, and the children had fed knitted carrots to the rabbits before going back to school, there was a surprise for me – an invitation to see some of the costumes up close.
Meticulously made and beautiful, they are not all the featherweight garments you’d be forgiven for imagining them to be.
One cast member, pink and panting slightly after her exertions as a wild rabbit, seemed relieved to have now been 'skinned' as she lugged her bunny outfit back to the dressing room.
On its second tour now, you can catch The Velveteen Rabbit at Gosforth Civic Theatre (December 20-22) or Bishop Auckland Town Hall (January 25), or thereafter in Edinburgh or Manchester.
But there’s much more life in this show yet. It could run and run… or maybe hop and hop. I hope it does.
Find tour and ticket details on the balletLORENT website.