Beyond the Bark’s Christmas offering transports its young audience into a world of nautical nature adventure that is neither twee nor old fashioned but rather mesmerising and enlightening.
Turning Turtles is the story of the altruistic Trevor who sets out on his boat every day to Turtle Island where he helps the erudite 100-year old turtle, Gertrude, turn the young turtles when they are endangered by falling on their backs. Also living on the island is the comical and apparently menacing bird, Reginald (portrayed by a skeletal marionette), who is scathing of and indifferent to the turtles’ plight. Reginald proffers that the island is in fact Bird Island and tells us that these turtles think it is theirs and that they are not very good at staying alive. Reginald is the children’s love-hate figure: they enjoy his humour and are saddened by his lack of care but he eventually restores their faith in the nature of scrawny birds when his conscience gets the better of him. When it really matters, Reginald forgoes his prejudice and comes to the assistance of Trevor and the turtles.
In conversations between Gertrude and Trevor, children are given a non-didactic and magical rendition of the turtles’ naturally perilous lives. A young turtle’s route to the sea is paved with danger; they must survive the preying of birds and crabs and then when they get to the bottom of the ocean where they are to grow, there is the danger of being dragged along the ocean floor by fishing boat nets.
The show’s use of marionette, rod, hand and shadow puppetry is quite magical and entirely captivating. The puppeteers and manipulators, mostly in plain view throughout, are unobtrusive and the children were mesmerised to see how it’s all done. Gertrude, a great big wise old turtle with a compassionate heart, is portrayed using hand puppetry, while Trevor (a rod puppet) is a brave unassuming hero and friend to all.
Emma Fisher’s and Daragh Bradshaw’s set design is a feat in visual art with its simulacrum of seaside boulders, sand, seaweed and the bric-a-brac of the sea. A large blue cloth serving as the tranquil water beside which Trevor and Gertrude chat, is brilliantly manipulated into a stormy sea, upon which Trevor risks life and limb to get to the Island, in the face of a massive storm, that poses additional threat to the young turtles. Kev O’Malley’s alternating sunny and dark lighting design and sounds of the sea by Ger O’Donnell mutate to apt effect for the tranquil and stormy scenes of the show.
Turning Turtles is dark, funny and sunny with plenty of tension to bait the breadths of a young audience, humour to induce their giggling glands, and hope to maintain their faith in the ultimate goodness of a world that is sometimes cruel.
Breda Shannon is a freelance writer and reviews books for The Irish Examiner.