Performing the Gruffalo

Shami Shamrock as the Mouse and Bob Commin as the Gruffalo

On a Saturday morning in March this year, while still in bed, we listened to the radio. A young woman was being interviewed about the play she was planning to put on. It was the presentation of the Gruffalo. The listeners were invited to come and audition that afternoon. I found myself saying to my wife:  “I could do that”.

That afternoon I phoned and Wendy the director invited me to audition on the Monday morning. What I didn’t know then was that on hearing my voice, she believed she had found the Gruffalo. Rehearsals would be on a Sunday afternoon from 12 – 3.00 pm for the next six months.

I loved being part of such a young cast, a dancer, a professional singer, an opera student, young dancer and singer, a young mother with children and three aspiring young actors still at school. We performed the storied play with a few new insights to two full houses of children and adults in the hall of The Athlone School for the Blind. It was a great success on the day and great fun as you will see from the pictures.

In a poem on the event I attempt to give an idea of the chaos before the audience arrives, the time it takes for the make-up to set, the assembly of the stage, its lights and sound and the lethargy of the actors as they wait for action; then the moment everything begins, flows and reaches a climax.

Time before the Presentation of a Children’s story.

In this room of make believe,
draped across tables and chairs
a patchwork of a costume, a snake’s head at rest,
and there’s the tail curled around a desk
enlarged ears for a brown mouse,
that will entertain the house
bags lie open and water-bottles play in light
the actors aimless keep out of sight
racks of costumes hung and hangers wait,
for bodies to energize and clothes to story their fate
cruel claws on gloves to instil fear
a fox’s tail lies orange in the rear
Fox, fox, fox – near jagged rocks
a suggestion of roasted fox
then a scuffling and zips grit teeth
arrangement of things large and small
as children fill the hall
the waiting room where everything reclines
patient for actors to come
nd stretch nerves into them.

groovy music fills the hall
and a saxophone moans
Why not take all of me
mirrors and faces in concentration
cheeks rouged and eyelashes curled
and animal features smoothed into being
A Fox, a Mouse, Snake and
Owl, who will drink at a stream
and take flight at the thought of becoming
ice-cream

a purple glow now
softens the stage
and a sound engineer strains for balance
with laptop, plugs, antennae,
microphones rise up like
meerkats alert
a river, waterfall, a lake,
and a vision of roasted snake
an umbrella for tree and forest
entrances marked and exits too
and a head with orange eyes to scowl at you
fearsome to see, with blackened tongue
yet somehow benign,
it arrives on time

then the lights fade on a forest path
a mouse goes for a walk in a deep dark wood,
the children gasp and follow
for that moment with, oh no! no! no! 0h!
The Gruffalo!