The arriving audience is greeted by electronic music being created live by a musician, a plain white set of walls, windows, domestic furniture, and a young woman sitting wide-eyed on a small bed staring off into the middle distance. As soon as the performance begins a man appears, very clearly in grief for a lost relation and it becomes clear that the young woman is his teenage daughter. He has to go to work and she is meant to be going to school. In a blink of an eye the set transforms into a comic book world and the girl is ‘Blaze’, superhero sidekick to ‘Silver’ who is in need of rescue from the evil ‘Doctor Oblivion’ but who is this new creature in the metropolis? The mysterious Beast?

Sparkle and Dark have created a tightly scripted, highly physical production which draws upon superhero iconography to explore teenage grief and how a family deals with trauma and breakup. Young adult audience members will immediately be drawn into this world and those of us who are older will remember the intense and sometimes desperate inner world of adolescence. Hopping back and forth between the real world of family and the imaginary superhero world the cleverly painted and lit set, the skilful puppetry of the Beast, and the hallucinatory feel create a powerful emotional through-line for this compelling piece.

The beast is scarred, potent, and full of rage. He encourages the girl to cross the moral line, not only defeating but killing her enemies to finally get to Silver, only to find it is too late and that Silver is gone as her rage dissolves into tears. I Am Beast captures an important moment in teenage life when you find that inner strength to cope with what seems like a world shattering event.