MOSS PIGLET at the Space Theater at the Adelaide Festival Center

Reviewed by Ewart Shaw, Sunday 20 October 2024

Windmill Moss pig it is an amazing act of imagination, technology, puppetry and fun. Youth theater was never like this when I was young. It’s blissfully stupid and perhaps, incidentally, educational. Co-creators Claire Watson and Elena Karapetis assembled a world-class creative team and brought it to the stage. Forty or so minutes, kaleidoscopic and bewildering, turns into an unforgettable experience filled with intelligence.

I attended the show as an unaccompanied adult. Henry is only two years old. It’s an interesting look at both child and adult audiences and their reactions, as well as the show itself. The young audience was hypnotized. The adults were fascinated.

There is foreplay. The curtained space lobby housed several science rigs manned by staff in white coats, encouraging you to look for tardigrades, reinforcing the show’s educational philosophy, and reminding you that tardigrades are actually very, very small.

The tardigrade, or water bear, or as the name suggests, the moss pig, is an almost microscopic creature with eight legs on a segmented body. Each foot has tiny claws or suckers.

They are also remarkably resilient, withstanding extremes of heat, cold, aridity and deep sea conditions.

This ability provides the basis for the show, as we are led through a variety of challenges posed by two scientists whose job appears to be testing the tardigrades’ limits.

Like all the best science documentaries, this one is accompanied by a calm and educated voice-over. The kit includes a laboratory stand with test tubes and accessories. There is also a metal cabinet that can be disassembled in half and rotated. Magical things are hidden there.

Two shuffling lab workers, Gareth Davis and Dylan Miller, lead a tardigrade through the hot desert. They then call the boss and say, “Dead,” and then realize that the tardigrade is “alive.” We watch as an animated moss pig travels across the sands of the Sahara. Luke Smiles’ score references the theme of Lawrence of Arabia, as well as the desert journey “on a horse with no name”. The music of Maurice Jarre and Neil Young speaks to adults.

The puppet show is great. One of the laboratory workers in a white coat quietly disappears from view and returns in the amazing outfit of a tardigrade, one of many puppets of different sizes. Oh yeah, it’s a poop joke. Everyone loves poop jokes. The scene in outer space when the tardigrade tries to eat while wearing a fishbowl headdress is unforgettable.

Composer Luke Smiles, speaking to me on 5EBI Arts on Air, described the show as “epic in scale, even though it’s a children’s show. It’s like several movie trailers stuck together,” and it is. Each drama is marked by dramatic intent and stunning perspectives. A secret agent, an astronaut or an athlete – a tiny heroic creature.

Smiles was also enthusiastic about the creation process, and each team member was encouraged to express their thoughts and ideas. The end result is gloriously indulgent.

The richness of imagination combined with technical virtuosity that characterizes this production is stunning, and young audiences take it for granted, as it should. The effects may resemble the fluidity of a television cartoon show, but it’s done by real people, and that’s a big part of the impact of the show. Whether they become scientists, theater practitioners, or simply receptive spectators, this production showed them magic.

Whatever it takes to create and put on stage is irrelevant. Youth theater deserves works of this quality. Luke Smiles and I, talking about the show, felt like it was like hiding nutritious vegetables from kids by sneaking them into mashed potatoes. “How’s the broccoli?” “Like broccoli.”

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