The Mermaid Princess – The Lowry, Salford

Writer/Director: Teresa Ludovico

Reviewer: Helen Jones

The Public Reviews Rating:

Teatro Kismet, in association with the Warwick Arts Centre, have brought their latest tour, an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, to the Lowry.

Teresa Ludovico, one of the company’s four Directors, has adapted this version from the original story without straying too far from Andersen’s dark tale. However whether the translation by Stuart Rogers loses something, or whether this was as written in Italian,the end result is so simplified as to lose huge chunks of the drama in the original story.

The show uses the basic story of the mermaid who falls in love with a prince and gives up her voice to be with him. However since she cannot speak she cannot convince him that she is the girl who saved him from the sea and so he marries someone else. While the highlights of the fairy tale are there, the show seems more like a series of disjointed scenes that a coherent whole.

All five performers are excellent. Daria Menichetti as the Mermaid Princess creates the role with beautiful movement, however she lacks a little of the ethereal vision that would make her seem more mermaid-like. Her beloved prince, played by Valerio Tambone, is suitably regal but totally upstaged by his gregarious Lord Chamberlain (Paolo Summaria). Both men also play a variety of other roles, as do the other two female performers Eugenia Amisano and Raffaella Gardon- the latter taking on the role of Narrator and producing a very effervescent performance.

The set by Luca Ruzza is simple. All that he uses are a single translucent screen, lengths of fabric high up which form the surface of the sea or are dropped and manipulated by the actors to create waves, and a couple of props. But they, along with Vincent Longuemare’s lighting design are all that’s needed to transport the action from the bottom of the sea to the prince’s palace. The costumes by Luigi Spezzacatgene are often complex and very stylised creating more caricatures than characters.

At just sixty minutes long, this show is obviously designed to appeal to youngsters. However it seems unsure as to the age of youngster that it aims for. Advertised as suitable for eight and upwards, there were plenty younger in the audience, and I can only hope that they got more out of it than my theatre wise nine year old, who found the whole performance rather boring!

Teatro Kismet are at least attempting to bring theatre suitable for young people out into the regions, but on the strength of this show, then they might need to look again at this production.