A recent academic study conducted about the British Performing Arts (2011-2012) reported that only 38% of people working within the industry were women. This almost 2:1 ratio favoring men has been taken up and there is a momentum gathering worldwide for this gender imbalance to be redressed.

ATYP can be very proud of its record and THE LITTLE MERMAID: Not Suitable for Children cements its reputation for supporting young artists who might well become the vanguard of the equity battle.  There are 23 young women in this show. Not all of whom will become professionals but they are the audiences and the benefactors of theatre into the next decades.

Starting from a pretty girlie topic: fairy stories, this production immerses the audience in an experiential rendering of the Hans Christian Anderson’s original, dark tale.  The mermaid falls for the prince she meets when visiting land.  She sacrifices all she knows but it is not enough.  Director Danielle O’Keefe in her program notes, refers to the mermaid as an “ambitious, heroic, lost, lonely girl”.  We meet 23 of them blended into the telling of the story.

We walk in and the dark space is cavernous and lit with blues and ambers supplemented by a monochrome video of water on the wide dominant wooden stage doors.  It’s dark and disorienting.  We have been warned that the performance will take place around us and if we sit we will miss out on the detail of the show.

Exploring the stripped out space, audience members encounter 6 representational mermaids whispering to us.  Their satin coloured tails are stuck, nailed even, to walls, boxes and the floor.  4 other young women are high on boxes and supported by the huge wooden pillars of the cavern.  They are aloof and distant in their height above us.  What we encounter next is a shoal of whispers and movement as the full cast begin to surge. Their white skirts have a hoop at the bottom and they move in the style of Siberian female dancing.  Gliding and sliding.   We do not see their feet!

I attended the midnight show on Halloween Friday.  I was knackered (despite a nana nap in the afternoon) at 11.30pm as I sat outside the venue in the warm spring night.  This cast had performed a 9pm show earlier in the evening but each individual face and body brought a performance into the room with them. This is where the ATYP tutors excel.

What I was hearing coming from the theatre as I sat on my bench was the excited gaggle of any drama class in any school waiting for their teacher to arrive.  What I encountered during the performance was a disciplined, charismatic ensemble.  While sitting in my car making notes after, I saw the giggly school girls returned to their parents: just young people excited from a successful night.  Only outstanding leadership inspires and motivates that professionalism.

During the performance these confident young women hold their characters clearly and from young to older their commitment drives the audience involvement. They speak to us, they offer potions and knives.  They herd us into a boat.  They respond to the choral work of the tailed mermaids and the villain of the piece who disfigures the titular character.   The only adult ( Natalie Richards) , indeed the only authority figure in this work is unrelentingly vicious and that gave me an uneasy feeling.  The group ranges in ages and some are tiny but not one of them lost focus.  The movement was complex and with few spoken or lighting cues to prompt them, the focus showed as they moved as one. Perhaps they were responding to some auditory stimulus.

The performance is about the young people’s work but as an adjunct to the viewing, there is a soundscape too. Created and engineered by David Wiggins, it is not a collection of sound effects but music to touch the emotions and clarify place.  The water is one sound, the rise to the land another and touching the earth on ‘stumps’ is yet another.  The frequencies are mostly high as befits the female energy of the space.  The volume is well controlled so as to heighten emotions without annoying the audience. The cast who speak do use microphones in the main but Wiggins needs to consider a lessening of volume when the other performers sing.  Isobel Mosse-Robinson among others has a lovely opera voice and it was lost to the audience. He should also be less visible and active.  It’s the girls’ night.

Unfortunately, this show has finished but, since my friend and I both googled and read the original story again, I would love to have the opportunity to take more friends to see it.  ATYP, please re-stage it and please continue to provide opportunities for young people and reduce the 2:1 ratio.

THE LITTLE MERMAID: Not Suitable for Children was performed at the ATYP Studio, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay on Friday 31st October at 9pm and Midnight and at 10pm on Saturday 1st November.