Hopeful Monster (United Kingdom)
MONSTROS ESPERANÇOSOS
Hopeful Monsters
14 and 15 May at 10.30am and 2.30pm (Thu, Fri) - Schools
16 and 17 May at 11.30am and 4.30pm (Sat, Sun) - Families
Portuguese Premiere
⇨ TICKETS ONLINE Tickets: General audience - Children and young people: 3€ Over 18: 7€ // Central boxes - Children and young people: 2€ Over 18: 5€ // Reduced visibility boxes - Children and young people: 1,5€ Over 18: 3€ +info
Technique: Hands, objects Language: Without words Age guidance: +4 (A classificar pela CCE) Runs: 40 min.
The story of evolution told through the hands! From simple organisms to giant beasts, the hands move and morph: constantly shifting and changing to create unexpected creatures as we journey through water, earth and air. This is a story of survival and struggle, of connection and transformation. A reminder of the playfulness of living. After all, we humans are animals too.
Hopeful Monsters is an exciting piece of tabletop theatre combining puppetry and an original soundtrack to explore the fundamental building blocks of life using only human hands.
The company Hopeful Monster presents a fascinating and vibrant performance, because, every now and then, a 'hopeful monster' is born, one that can lead its species toward an unexpected evolution...
"Ingenious children’s puppet show envisioning the origins of life." ★★★★★ - Oliver Jones, The Stage (5 stars)
"Intoxicating, beautiful and wonderfully funny, this puppet performance uses only hands to depict our amazing human connection with nature.
Performed by three exceptional puppeteers, this is a breathtaking, intoxicatingly theatrical work.
The puppeteers perform superbly as a team, intricately weaving hands, arms and fingers in a multiplicity of combinations and using a bare minimum of props to form bizarrely wonderful characters. We’re introduced to frogs and giraffes; stalk-eyed crabs hilariously compete for the best rock; and a wonderful mummy and baby bird duo has the wide-eyed children in the audience explosively shrieking with joy.
The extraordinary musical score creates a harmonious stream of moods and atmospheres, telling of activity, emotion and location. It provides a meandering pathway, which the characters move along in rhythm or respond to with lively, idiosyncratic actions that fill them with buoyant, bubbling personality.
Hopeful Monsters is an enchanting, fabulously entertaining show but also impressively empowering and inclusive, telling how humans and nature can make beauty together. It’s a production not to be missed at any age!" ★★★★★ - Mary Pollard, Everything Theatre (5 stars)
"A poetic, innovative and incredibly bright show” - Puppet Animation Scotland
BIO
Hopeful Monster is a Scottish/English/Hungarian ensemble of three women, Ella, Eti e Bori, working collaboratively to create playful visual theatre inspired by the natural world and informed by science.
In evolutionary theory, a 'hopeful monster' is what you get when a sudden genetic mutation produces a radically new organism. Like its namesake, the company aims to create work that is weird and wonderful, playing with the possibilities of puppetry and delighting in the unusual visual creations that emerge.
The company formed in 2017 after training at the Curious School of Puppetry and is now based across the UK (Glasgow, London and North Devon).
CREDITS
Concept: Hopeful Monster Theatre Performers: Bori Mezo, Ella Mackay, Alex Young Lighting design: Topher Dagg, Sarah Wright Music: Michael Hyland Technician: Ciara Moss Photography: Mihaela Bodlovic Support: Creative Scotland, Moving Parts Scratch Space, Cumbernauld Theatre - Lanternhouse, Outside Eyes - Tron Theatre Glasgow