Brothers Bare

If Sondheim’s fairytale mash-up Into the Woods is a wry, ironic, comic and a gently moral tale, Brothers Bare is subversive, confrontational (but funny) and very black.  Playwrights Fallico and Jones depict the hidden subtext, not just of one, two or three fairy tales but the dark insidious ideology of the fairy tale world – the stories told and retold, shaping the minds of children – especially girls - and on into their futures.  Models of passivity – until rescued by a Prince or a Fairy Godmother.

In her Writer’s Note, Jessica Fallico tells us when she taught in a girls’ school, she tried to get her pupils to question the assumptions underlying fairy tales, but she watched them gravitate towards – as she puts it – ‘what they knew’.  Indeed.  How often have we seen, on the street or in the supermarket, tiny girls dressed as princesses - complete with tiara.

Brothers Bare (the reference to the Brothers Grimm is plain) has three sequences introduced and bound together by a Narrator (Elishira Biernoff-Giles) who speaks in rhyming couplets throughout – constantly keeping us in an awareness of children’s literature.  The Narrator’s text and the characters’ dialogue mix and match references – sometimes fleeting - to numerous fairy tales that weave in and out, enriching the stories and creating a web or trap of the world of fairy tales. It’s disturbing how often we recognise these references...

A version of the Cinderella character (Grace Gemmell) who wears an inhibiting ball gown, is trapped on a ladder by her shoe (could it be the glass slipper?).  Frantic, she yells for help but is only advised and chastised by a supercilious dandy version of the White Rabbit (Charlie Veitch in fine form) from Alice in Wonderland.  (Strictly speaking, is that a fairy tale? Disney-fied, yes.)  This Cinderella gets the line, ‘I’m late, I’m late’ which she delivers on the edge of panic as if her life depends on it.  It does.  She’s late for Prince Charming.  The callous Rabbit coldly gives her horrendous advice...

In a second sequence – a kind of fugue - a captive woman (Grace Gemmell), in a state of high anxiety about her appearances on Instagram, etc, and her status as an influencer, is harassed and bullied by two ugly and frightening trolls, or goblins (Charlie Veitch and Dion Zapantis) who seek to change her body shape via corsetry and tight bands. How else can she succeed?  The process is clearly painful, but the woman is compliant!  ‘Mirror, Mirror, on the wall...’ reminds us how women are induced to conform and compete.

Interestingly and intelligently, Fallico’s and Jones’ dialogue often refer to the animated Disney versions of these fairy tales, knowing full well that it’s these versions that are the insidious and only experience of the younger audience. 

The third sequence is perhaps the most straightforward as ‘drama’: a non-innocent version of the Goldilocks character seeks shelter from a storm in a forest cottage.  But the inhabitants are not the benign Three Bears but three very unpleasant humans...  (Veitch, Zapantis and Biernoff-Giles.)  I found this sequence – brilliantly choreographed by Cameral Boxall – genuinely frightening and even sickening. 

Viv Hargreaves’ spooky, moody lighting, and Raphael Bradbury’s ominous sound design subtly create the dangerous world.  The direct address narration, however, may be necessary but there may be a little too much ‘explaining’, and the rhyming couplets do at times descend into rather irritating doggerel.

But Brothers Bare is saved from mere subversion and preachy feminist analysis by being extremely clever and inventive in mining and combining the threads of these familiar tales and then presenting them with such originality and wit.  This is a show where we laugh, certainly, but often in uneasy recognition and horror.  Revelation follows revelation: we are drawn to make discoveries and think again.

Michael Brindley

Photographer: Kimberly Summer