Technologies old and new are cleverly combined in Davy & Kristin McGuire’s miniature projected theatre performance, The Ice Book. Part animation, part book art and part performance, the show’s use of back projection onto pop-up book sets result in an experience that is both intimate and immersive.
It also conjures up the spirit of Georges Méliès and early film experimentation, Russian folk tales, magic lantern theatre and eastern European animation. So far so good – all of my personal interest boxes ticked.
The mechanical aspects of the performance – the lightbox and book – are well crafted and work beautifully. And you can sense how the origins of the miniature stage sets lay in full-scale theatre.
The McGuire’s had long held the dream of creating a theatre performance that opened up like a pop-up book and The Ice Book was created as a demonstration model to lure funding.
The back-projected animations play automatically during the performance while one of the artists, in this case Davy, turns the pages of the large pop-up book by hand to reveal each new scene.
However, I found that The Icebook’s story itself is the weakest part of the show. It’s familiar and simple (as folk tales are, I know), telling the the story of a mysterious princess who lures a boy into her magical world to warm her heart of ice.
Given the technical ingenuity on show, I would have liked to see a story with more invention and ‘magic’. It all just felt a bit flat and, well, one-dimensional. This is a minor quibble though (I’m beginning to sound like Barry Norman!) as the it is a special and unique piece of theatre and I’m genuinely excited to see what Davy and Kristin get up to next.
-Gavin Street, Marketing Manager
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