Green Ginger - Outpost

Green Ginger: Outpost

Green Ginger - OutpostA remote border crossing is the setting for this new show from the renowned and much admired Green Ginger whose work, like many of the best UK puppetry companies, receives more recognition outside the UK than within our own borders.

This production features classic tabletop puppetry and in design comes across as a three-dimensional staged graphic novel. On the surface it’s a dusty remote pair of tiny turret-like dwellings facing each other across a single rising barrier, and the play opens with a new guard (Luis) arriving, full of patriotic and xenophobic enthusiasm, and encountering the other inhabitant: a grizzled old veteran with a good heart and a cynical and pragmatic outlook on his job (BK – pronounced Beekay).

The three puppeteer performers (Chris Pirie, Adam Fuller, and Kim Heron) bring these characters to life with skilful manipulation and good teamwork. At first it appears that the Kim, the only female performer onstage, is condemned to operating the feet of the puppets moved and voiced by Chris and Adam, but the appearance of Madame President, fleeing an unfortunate diplomatic incident fuelled by the protests at the ‘Extravision Song Contest’, gives Kim a marvellous character to operate and voice, which she does admirably. This intimidating mix of Margaret Thatcher and Augusto Pinochet needs a bolthole, and Luis takes her to the newly-discovered cave he and BK fell into where a new source of power awaits to fuel her ambition.

In puppetry, design is everything, and using puppets with practical mouths means a responsibility to provide well-written dialogue as well as clever staging. Outpost delivers plenty of philosophical – though not subtle or sophisticated – material on migration, patriotism, power, politics, and society. In the opening scene Luis forbids a fly from crossing the border, bemoaning the surge of immigrants attempting to get into his precious homeland, and casually crushes it beneath his boot. Later he becomes the willing lackey of the psychopathic president, rapidly promoted. It’s only when she orders him to commit murder that he starts to question his loyalty to his leader.

Yet it’s worth noting that puppets do some things much better than human actors: they die better, they transform much better, and they have the ability to represent concepts through symbolism and metaphor better. A puppet can be a character and a symbol in a way that an actor can’t. A cast of actors and physical theatre performers could equally present this script: the writer still has some lessons to learn about how to fully take advantage of the power of puppet theatre.

There are some impressive effects, including one epic scene change, and a very well designed soundscape by Benji Bower that supports the production powerfully. There are perhaps not enough, though, of the transformations that puppetry lends itself to so well. However, the script is powerful, the production and design brilliantly realised and the performers have the skills and experience to bring the characters and events great focus and energy. Director Joseph Wallace has blended the visual elements and vocal delivery well, the plot is well paced and the lighting design helps to sustain a high visual impact on stage in a production that manages to capture how politics can make puppets of us all.