Suitcase Show full of tricks at St Magnus Festival
Trick of the Light Theatre’s welcome return to the St Magnus Festival unpacks magic and macabre from a humble pile of luggage.
Suitcase Show brings all the wonder of shadow puppetry and stagecraft that Bookbinder did two years ago, though with perhaps a slightly older audience in mind.
New Zealanders Ralph McCubbin Howell and Hannah Smith were inspired by their experience of lugging suitcases full of props and lighting equipment internationally when producing this latest gem.
Suitcase Show puts a mysterious storyteller’s (McCubbin Howell) plans in the hands of an airport security agent (Smith) — or is it the other way round?
Each piece of luggage needs to be checked, and inside every suitcase is a story — told using intricate pop-ups, puppets and lights.
At its most simple, two LED bulbs on each of Ralph’s hands transform them into a couple who fall in love, get married and grow old. More complex is the use of a turntable to set shadow puppets spinning to music which sounds like its coming from the record player itself — all inside a suitcase.
In either case, the result is marvellous, and often darkly funny.
Ralph, who founded Trick of the Light Theatre with Hannah in 2011, told The Orcadian how their education at Victoria University of Wellington taught them to be inventive when it comes to making theatre.
“We went to a university that was very encouraging of making your own work and forming companies,” he explained.
“So rather than sitting by the phone and hoping a casting agent would call you, you’d roll your sleeves up and get stuck in.
“And we had quite a breadth of training there in terms of a bit of design and a bit of writing, and then we just sort of pursue things that interest us, and that we hope will interest other people.”
Click play on the video above to hear more about Suitcase Show.
You can catch Suitcase Show this Sunday evening at the Orkney Theatre. Trick of the Light Theatre will be performing at the Edinburgh Fringe throughout August.