Theatre / Reviews
Mayfest 2024 Review: The Making of Pinocchio, Bristol Old Vic – ‘Inventive, original and visually rich’
The Making of Pinocchio is the true story of artists Ivor MacAskill and Rosana Cade’s evolving relationship both with each other and with the piece they’re working on, which is based around the story of Pinocchio.
This has extra metaphorical weight, as Ivor is transitioning from male to female; not only does it ask what a real boy is, it asks whether it matters at all. And yet it starts with just a cricket, referencing the title story.
I wasn’t close enough to see whether it was a real cricket being filmed in real time, but it appeared to be, sitting in a small lit box with a camera trained on it, which was then projected onto the screen. It’s the first of many inventive and visually rich stagings that are exciting to watch.
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Rosana Cade and Ivor MacAskill in The Making of Pinocchio, Mayfest 2024 – photo: Tiu Makkonen
We can see all the way to the back of the Bristol Old Vic – almost as deep in the other direction as the audience – and the staging takes the form of a backstage workshop filled with props. Our view is obscured slightly at the top by a projector screen, which is filled with real-time footage filmed from out of sight on stage left, and by roving camera-people.
MacAskill and Cade, wearing flesh-coloured outfits with wooden blocks attached to them, often perform set pieces in front of a huge red curtain hanging from stage right, facing the camera.
They play deceptively simple but brilliant visual tricks with perspective, which keeps the audience laughing merrily throughout. It’s tempting to only watch the screen and not their movements, but they do come to the front of the stage as well, and speak directly to the cameras as if they’re part of a television show.
Photo: Tiu Makkonen
The piece is inevitably rich with metaphor, exploring the extent to which gender and the piece itself are performances. It explores the questions that have arisen from Ivor’s transition; having previously been two gay women, how does this change their relationship? How does Cade feel about her gender in light of Ivor’s feelings about his? How does their relationship change in the view of the world? Are they exploiting all this is the name of art?
These reflections are interspersed with set pieces, initially that of a parochial fairy tale as Geppetto makes Pinocchio, and moving on to include the process of evolution, a variety show with MacAskill as Pinocchio and a brilliantly set up view of the ‘stage’ with wooden audience figures on the projector screen, and the couple discussing their changed sex life while experimenting with sticking wooden poles into their own and the other’s wooden blocks. There are plenty of meta asides, from the nature of the quick change, to poking fun at Cade’s feeling alternatively like a subplot and a puppeteer in Ivor’s journey.
Photo: Manuel Vason
In fact, I would argue they become meta too fast, and should showcase the staging and the whimsical themes more before addressing the audience to fill them in on the set up. Conversely, the set pieces can be a little prolonged; because we know the conceit very early on, they are free to explore facets of Ivor’s transition in a meandering manner. They are beautiful and often funny however, especially the brilliantly realised ocean scene at the end.
I feel that they could have explored Pinocchio and his expanding nose a little further, given that it’s such a familiar feature of the Disney narrative, perhaps in the context of his wanting to become a fixed physical form.
There’s a particularly moving section in which a nude MacAskill sings When You Wish Upon a Star, alongside a projected video of himself pre-transition, his high feminine voice melding beautifully with his present-day deeper pitch. Cade and MacAskill reflect towards the end that the show is always changing and perhaps always will; eavesdropping in the bar afterwards, I heard someone say, “I’ve never seen anything like that”.
Mayfest 2024 takes place in venues across Bristol from May 17-26. All tickets are Pay What You Can from as little as £5 (plus booking fees). For tickets and more information, visit www.mayk.org.uk/mayfest.
Main photo: Tiu Makkonen
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