The Stage

The Mermaid Princess

Published Thursday 25 March 2010 at 17:50 by Pat Ashworth

This is the English speaking version of the European reworking of Ludovico’s Japanese commission, which pretty much sums up the global appeal of Teatro Kismet. The Mermaid Princess has been to Italy and France prior to the UK tour and these influences are joyfully apparent, especially in the costume.

Children will slot into it at a different level from adults. If they’re expecting the happy ever after Disney ending to the story, they’ll have to make quite a leap of maturity to accept that this mermaid’s happy ending is to metamorphose into a cloud and begin a life of continuous renewal.

It’s shiveringly beautiful and frequently spellbinding, played out by the five ensemble members in a vast space where suspended silken banners have a wafting choreography of their own, physicality creates the dramatic storm and shipwreck, and the slow descent of two chandeliers provides a palace. Thrilling opera accompanies swells of high drama and blends with pop and nursery rhyme in a characteristically quirky score.

Comic moments come from the Machiavellian Lord Chamberlain and the hopeful candidates for the Prince’s hand, to sweeten the often bitter pill of the Mermaid’s tragic situation. She has been aqueous and iridescent. Now she emits a terrible silent scream when her voice is ripped from her throat, and lumbers awkwardly on bloodied legs. When she redeems herself and lets fall the dagger that might have killed the Prince, it is borne off on the silent sweep of the bridal train. It cuts to the quick.