The puppetry in this piece was fantastic and there is probably no other way of showing a man compulsively eating anything he can get hold of and then regurgitating some of it. Freaks are of course of intense fascination to the general public and of great scientific interest to doctors. This puppet opera showed the dehumanisation of a so-called freak. His short life is tragic and tragically misunderstood. The public drive him away and the doctor, although taking him into his clinic, turns him into a case. There is another freak, a woman, who possibly loves him but she is inevitably killed.
The music is fantastically played by pianist An Ting Chang, who is also the music director. Violin player Katy Rowe, is also wonderful and between them they colour the music to fit the drama. The singing was superb and the singers had an enormous range. The design was suitably dark and gothic and the direction and pace of the piece was excellent. It was an extremely clever idea to take a true medical case from the past of a polyphagist, a person with an excessive desire to eat, and turn it into a kind of Victor Hugo gothic tragedy. It is a great new piece of writing by a talented couple, Tom and Toby Poster.
The idea of a puppet opera seemed to me however enormously ambitious. I am not an expert on puppetry but it does seem that one of the great things about them is their charm and their humour. This piece was relentlessly bleak. There was no redemption. There was very little humour and as a historical story it was somewhat lacking plot. Under the circumstances I felt that it could have been half an hour shorter and perhaps confined to one act.
There were beautiful moments such as when the fat baby puppet first appears on stage or when Tarrare throws up, depicted by a crimson curtain being pulled from his mouth. But there were long patches in between where the tragic puppets moved to their inevitable demise in the grey light with a lot of explanation and not so much emotion.
This is a brand new opera presented in an original way with a fantastic cast and musicians . It deserves to be seen. ★★★★☆ Keith Erskine 27th January 2017
