Small children rocking out!

When Daphna Attias and I pitched Clunk to the Small Wonders commissioners we wanted to make a show that invited small children to rock out. The previous summer Daphna had taken her two year old to a couple of music festivals and was intrigued by how much the live music engaged him in a very free way. The liberating and terrifying proposal of making work for under fives in an outdoor setting certainly challenged the entire creative team. Peut-être Theatre specialises in creating fresh adaptations of classic writer’s material such as Lorca, Ionesco and Prévert, while my company Dante or Die creates environments and experiences in which to involve audiences. We were certain we wanted our audience very much involved in the action.

The show was inspired by Russian surrealist Daniil Kharms’ short stories and poems from a collection entitled ‘It happened like this’. His stories are found in most households in Russia but are not very well known in the UK. The stories were exactly what we were looking for – silly and surreal, dark yet funny. There are crows with four legs, a man who continually falls over and breaks his glasses and a lion that turns into an elephant before turning into a bird. Our trio of actor-musicians threw themselves into creating Balkan-inspired music with their trumpets, trombones and saxophones, creating characters from the absurdist stories and songs inspired by the poetic writing. However, something wasn’t quite right.

We are attempting to tap into the more manic side of the under-five temperament and experience

The more we explored the material the more dense it became. It is steeped in deep political unrest and the themes explored were almost too complex for us to get our heads round in a rehearsal room, never mind creating a show that connected to three and four year olds. The proof was in the pudding when we performed a work-in-progress to a nursery group. While some of our material seemed to engage the children, for a lot of it they seemed bored and uninterested. So, with ten rehearsal days left we almost completely wiped our current show and went back to the roots of what we wanted to do: create a mini-gig in which our audience could sing along, play an instrument and be genuinely involved in the action.

We boiled our narrative down to the heart of our idea: Boris wants to write a new song and Sona and Masha don’t think it’s possible. Designer Lucy Bradbridge created a mini-orchestra of foam instruments stuck on to little seats. When they arrive the audience becomes part of the Clunk world and chooses an instrument. During the thirty-minute long performance Boris enlists the help of the audience to write a brand new song – and it is different every time. The cast asks the orchestra questions and their responses go into the song. At another moment audience members move the actor’s heads from side to side, with different sounds coming out of their mouths depending on how they are turned. Each performance has to respond to the audience.

This has been the key to keeping everyone engaged. The children get thoroughly involved in Boris’ story – singing to teach him songs that they know, shouting out suggestions for songs and eventually dancing all around our mini world. The exciting thing about Clunk for us is that we are attempting to tap into the more manic side of the under-five temperament and experience, to explore that buzzing energy and put it to good artistic use. At the most recent performance, at the National Theatre’s Watch This Space Festival, Boris’s final song was all about Boris and Grace being in a park eating fish and chips and riding elephants… so Kharms’ absurdity still lives through the show. We have certainly enjoyed having a good dose of childish anarchy in our lives this summer.

Terry O’Donovan is Co-Artistic Director of Dante or Die.
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