She's hot and bored and there's time to be filled. Her brother is preoccupied with playing the fiddle and her father has all kinds of unpredictable rules about what she can and can't do. So, like all good children, she improvises: dancing, singing, storytelling, dressing up, playing at make believe, allowing one idea to suggest another, and turning a simple act such as biting an apple into an elaborate game of juggling, train noises and disgusting eating.
And what do you know, the time passes. The production by Sarah Argent is gently paced and precisely acted, with an elemental vocabulary to match an imaginative flair that any child will understand. If it doesn't make your next family outing any easier, it should at least, like Waiting for Godot, strike a chord of existential recognition.
Edinburgh Guide
by Thelma Good
Rapt children knew.
When you are young there's a lot of waiting. Connie and her older brother are waiting for what? A train? A ship? A car? It's never clear but they've got luggage. Dad tries to keep Connie occupied and her brother does too sometimes. He plays a violin skilfully, and for adults it's the music that will initially most enthrall.
But for tinies, they find the gentle exploration of being a young child, when you can only do what adults and older siblings allow, absorbing. In the luggage there are surprises to be revealed but there is no big story. You never know where they are going or why they are leaving. But then the young audience can fit their own lives inside the play. While adults will recall how they keep their little ones occupied when waiting for big adventures, special holidays or escaping something they hope to leave behind.
Just after I saw it I thought it insignificant but in reflection I've discovered it's hauntingly comforting and consoling. The rapt children knew that immediately, clever them!
© Thelma Good 24 May 2005 - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
