The Lion of Kabul

Published Thursday 28 September 2006 at 15:00 by Thom Dibdin

Set and auditorium are combined to strong effect as this delightful touring production, directed and designed by Karen Tennent, takes its five-year-old and over audience into the lion’s den. Literally so, as the octagonal tent-like structure is the cage of Marjan, a lion cub sent from Copenhagen zoo to Kabul zoo. Childlike illustrations of the world beyond the bars are projected onto the sides, with those of the other animals who inhabit the zoo.

Gill Robertson grabs the role of Marjan by the tail, as she and Kieran Cheung as his keeper let down the sides of a crate waiting centre stage to reveal said tail in a pile of straw. Strapping it on, she spends time in silencing any giggles from more sarcastic audience members twitching and pacing around the cage, smelling out the world around and learning to roar as Marjan grows older.

If the way into Marjan’s story is through the keeper’s daughter, who appears as a silhouette against the bars, the meat of it lies in his maturity in dealing with the “war animal” which rumbles down from the mountains. First as the Taliban, then through liberation to the zoo’s reopening.

Writer Nicola McCartney creates a very real world for her characters and audience to inhabit, with precise use of repetitive actions, sound and music. Karen Tennent’s combining of modern visuals from Stephen and Jonathan Charles of D Fie Foe with Robertson’s strong storytelling results in a production that packs a very powerful emotional punch indeed.