speeltheater show

Reviews — Ricky of the Tuft

Fairy tale puppets come to life

NRC- HANDELSBLAD 23 January 2006

The French author Charles Perrault (1628-1703) acquired great fame with the eight tales written in prose “Tales of Mother Goose”. Even today, parents still read their children these stories. The performance Ricky of the Tuft which Speeltheater Holland presents for children aged five and older is a gem. It shows that a fairy tale is not only to be read out loud, but can also become an unforgettable performance.

The performance of the actors and the three puppets is effectively simple and inspires the imagination. At his birth, Prince Ricky is so ugly that his mother rejects him. However, he is exceptionally intelligent. In a neighboring kingdom, two princesses are born on the same day as Ricky, one of them astonishingly beautiful but terribly dumb, the other princess ugly and smart. This trio forms the core of the performance.
Beautiful, ugly and clever are the central themes of Ricky of the Tuft. It is as if Perrault poses his readers a riddle. If beautiful and clever don’t match, what is to become of the love between the unsightly Ricky and the magnificent Isabel? And will the smart Claudia ever find someone to love? As in most fairy tales, a good fairy provides the happy solution.
Director Onny Huisink embodies the threesome as puppets. To superbly selected music by Mozart, a game of love and tenderness unfolds. It begins on a bright and lovely spring day and when autumn comes around, the golden leaves are falling to the ground. The puppets have a characteristic, suggestive facial expression. The actors bring Ricky, Claudia and Isabel to life in an amazing way: using their hands and speaking with their voice, a puppet is transformed into a character, a personality. Ricky of the Tuft is full of dance. The American choreographer Donald Byrd, who previously worked in the Netherlands on Writing to Vermeer (direction Peter Sellars), creates a superb, aesthetic pattern of dance movements. The thick ropes that govern the stage represent both the walls of the castle and the woods. In a scene intended to express a storm, the actors wildly shake the ropes back and forth.
For a long time now, puppets are no longer used exclusively in family performances. The Flemish dramatist Eric De Volder uses puppets in a similar way in his newest piece ‘Au nom du père’. It is always wonderful to see how the seemingly static face of a puppet can acquire an expression through text and theatrical play. The audience believes in them. Ricky of the Tuft is emotionally moving theatre.
© Kester Freriks

Sparkling fairy tale with dancing actors and three royal puppets

TROUW, 25 January 2006

In a neat, colorful setting full of reflecting furniture, two royal families appear. They are dancing. A queen wearing a tall, blonde wig lifts a pale doll from its nest-shaped crib. She looks at her baby with horror: 'I want a Disney-baby!' she cries. But prince Ricky has a large head with a peculiar tuft on it. In the neighboring country, also two royal babies have been born. Princess Isabel is beautiful and very dumb, her intelligent sister Claudia has a snub nose and sticky-out ears.
After this opening scene, Speeltheater Holland’s performance ‘Ricky of the tuft’ can’t go wrong anymore. Director Onny Huisink and script writer Saskia Janse worked together with the famous Broadway choreographer Donald Byrd. The result is a sparkling performance about beauty and intelligence. The energetic acting styles, the lively characters and the wise-cracks carry the entire performance.
Beauty and intelligence are not easily combined in the Perrault fairy story. But a good fairy provides a solution: Isabel will share her beauty with her future husband and Ricky’s intelligence will brush off onto his wife. And with that, everything will be alright, when the right time comes.

In a soap opera full of amorous complications, the actors dance across the stage and manipulate three royal puppets. Ricky is a clumsy gawk in short pants. Isabel and Claudia are slender ballerina dolls with long legs. Isabel’s parents want her to find a husband and a Greek lover arrives on the scene. The muscular doll falls for her beauty but soon gets fed up with her. The hero on his white horse also gallops out of there fast when Isabel keeps going on about filing her nails.
In the meantime, Claudia is faced with a different kind of problem. The Queen Mother wants to give her ugly daughter a 'makeover', but the girl has no intention of undergoing surgery. “Mom wants to have my nose and ears cut off!” she tells her sister. The princesses run away from home together and with their luxury trolley suitcases they stumble through the autumn woods full of falling golden leaves. But prince Ricky has fallen in love with Isabel and in the meantime the mutual parents plan a wedding.

The fairy tale is rich with funny twists and the four actors - Steve Beimaert, Margien van Doesen, Mirjam Hegger en Hugo Konings – are equally comical. Using wacky gestures and an acting style involving dance, they keep the audience perched on the edge of their seats. In the end, love makes everything right. In the eyes of your one true love, you are always both beautiful and intelligent.
© Twaalfhoven, A.

The game of love is happily blind

LEEUWARDER COURANT 2 February 2006

In their previous performance 'Dog in the night', a puppet played the leading part of the fifteen year old, autistic Dan. In 'Ricky of the tuft' the main roles are once again for puppets, but this time Speeltheater Holland adds an extra dimension but telling the story not only in puppetry, theatre and dance, but also having the piece simultaneously ‘interpreted’ in sign language.
The mimicry of actress Mirjam Hegger, one of the four actors in this lucidly designed performance speaks volumes, also to those spectators who are not deaf. She demonstrates that sign language can sometimes make words unnecessary.
Speeltheater Holland gets the story from a tale from Charles Perrault’s 'Mother Goose', in which the seventeenth century French author juggles with themes like beauty, love and intelligence. The unsightly but extremely clever prince Ricky promises the beautiful princess Isabel to be eternally faithful. All the other princes pay absolutely no attention to her, because her stupidity is blatantly obvious the moment she opens her mouth to speak. Ricky however, is delighted to have found a person who likes him and he gives Isabel, as predicted at his birth by a fairy, some of his intelligence. From that moment on, the princess is no longer a dumb blonde, but a very smart one.
Before the two lovebirds can embark on the life ‘happily ever after’ that typifies all fairy stories, a number of misunderstandings need to be cleared up. Isabel has a twin sister, who is clever and smart but who has an extremely large nose and ears the same.
As the day of the wedding comes closer, Isabel sees the ugly mug of prince Ricky as a growing obstacle to her promising him to be eternally true. She tries to find a way out by arranging to swap identities with her twin sister. Complete confusion results, but in the end, they all live happily ever after, all three of them because the game of love, luckily, is blind. Speeltheater Holland presents a 60-minute performance in which the actors play a role, provide a ‘commentator’s voice’, and then go on to manipulating the puppets. The various roles blend and the actors complement each other in one flowing motion.
This sublime (combined) play is given free space by the minimal but effective stage setting and the fabulous lighting. The music of Mozart completes the court atmosphere of this playful performance.
© Roeland Sprey

	Reviews — Ricky of the Tuft Fairy tale puppets come to life NRC- HANDELSBLAD 23 January 2006 The French author Charles Perrault (1628-1703) acquired great fame with the eight tales written in prose “Tales of Mother Goose”. Even today, parents still read their children these stories. The performance Ricky of the Tuft which Speeltheater Holland presents for children aged five and older is a gem. It shows that a fairy tale is not only to be read out loud, but can also become an unforgettable performance. The performance of the actors and the three puppets is effectively simple and inspires the imagination. At his birth, Prince Ricky is so ugly that his mother rejects him. However, he is exceptionally intelligent. In a neighboring kingdom, two princesses are born on the same day as Ricky, one of them astonishingly beautiful but terribly dumb, the other princess ugly and smart. This trio forms the core of the performance. Beautiful, ugly and clever are the central themes of Ricky of the Tuft. It is as if Perrault poses his readers a riddle. If beautiful and clever don’t match, what is to become of the love between the unsightly Ricky and the magnificent Isabel? And will the smart Claudia ever find someone to love? As in most fairy tales, a good fairy provides the happy solution. Director Onny Huisink embodies the threesome as puppets. To superbly selected music by Mozart, a game of love and tenderness unfolds. It begins on a bright and lovely spring day and when autumn comes around, the golden leaves are falling to the ground. The puppets have a characteristic, suggestive facial expression. The actors bring Ricky, Claudia and Isabel to life in an amazing way: using their hands and speaking with their voice, a puppet is transformed into a character, a personality. Ricky of the Tuft is full of dance. The American choreographer Donald Byrd, who previously worked in the Netherlands on Writing to Vermeer (direction Peter Sellars), creates a superb, aesthetic pattern of dance movements. The thick ropes that govern the stage represent both the walls of the castle and the woods. In a scene intended to express a storm, the actors wildly shake the ropes back and forth. For a long time now, puppets are no longer used exclusively in family performances. The Flemish dramatist Eric De Volder uses puppets in a similar way in his newest piece ‘Au nom du père’. It is always wonderful to see how the seemingly static face of a puppet can acquire an expression through text and theatrical play. The audience believes in them. Ricky of the Tuft is emotionally moving theatre. © Kester Freriks Sparkling fairy tale with dancing actors and three royal puppets TROUW, 25 January 2006 In a neat, colorful setting full of reflecting furniture, two royal families appear. They are dancing. A queen wearing a tall, blonde wig lifts a pale doll from its nest-shaped crib. She looks at her baby with horror: 'I want a Disney-baby!' she cries. But prince Ricky has a large head with a peculiar tuft on it. In the neighboring country, also two royal babies have been born. Princess Isabel is beautiful and very dumb, her intelligent sister Claudia has a snub nose and sticky-out ears. After this opening scene, Speeltheater Holland’s performance ‘Ricky of the tuft’ can’t go wrong anymore. Director Onny Huisink and script writer Saskia Janse worked together with the famous Broadway choreographer Donald Byrd. The result is a sparkling performance about beauty and intelligence. The energetic acting styles, the lively characters and the wise-cracks carry the entire performance. Beauty and intelligence are not easily combined in the Perrault fairy story. But a good fairy provides a solution: Isabel will share her beauty with her future husband and Ricky’s intelligence will brush off onto his wife. And with that, everything will be alright, when the right time comes. In a soap opera full of amorous complications, the actors dance across the stage and manipulate three royal puppets. Ricky is a clumsy gawk in short pants. Isabel and Claudia are slender ballerina dolls with long legs. Isabel’s parents want her to find a husband and a Greek lover arrives on the scene. The muscular doll falls for her beauty but soon gets fed up with her. The hero on his white horse also gallops out of there fast when Isabel keeps going on about filing her nails. In the meantime, Claudia is faced with a different kind of problem. The Queen Mother wants to give her ugly daughter a 'makeover', but the girl has no intention of undergoing surgery. “Mom wants to have my nose and ears cut off!” she tells her sister. The princesses run away from home together and with their luxury trolley suitcases they stumble through the autumn woods full of falling golden leaves. But prince Ricky has fallen in love with Isabel and in the meantime the mutual parents plan a wedding. The fairy tale is rich with funny twists and the four actors - Steve Beimaert, Margien van Doesen, Mirjam Hegger en Hugo Konings – are equally comical. Using wacky gestures and an acting style involving dance, they keep the audience perched on the edge of their seats. In the end, love makes everything right. In the eyes of your one true love, you are always both beautiful and intelligent. © Twaalfhoven, A. The game of love is happily blind LEEUWARDER COURANT 2 February 2006 In their previous performance 'Dog in the night', a puppet played the leading part of the fifteen year old, autistic Dan. In 'Ricky of the tuft' the main roles are once again for puppets, but this time Speeltheater Holland adds an extra dimension but telling the story not only in puppetry, theatre and dance, but also having the piece simultaneously ‘interpreted’ in sign language. The mimicry of actress Mirjam Hegger, one of the four actors in this lucidly designed performance speaks volumes, also to those spectators who are not deaf. She demonstrates that sign language can sometimes make words unnecessary. Speeltheater Holland gets the story from a tale from Charles Perrault’s 'Mother Goose', in which the seventeenth century French author juggles with themes like beauty, love and intelligence. The unsightly but extremely clever prince Ricky promises the beautiful princess Isabel to be eternally faithful. All the other princes pay absolutely no attention to her, because her stupidity is blatantly obvious the moment she opens her mouth to speak. Ricky however, is delighted to have found a person who likes him and he gives Isabel, as predicted at his birth by a fairy, some of his intelligence. From that moment on, the princess is no longer a dumb blonde, but a very smart one. Before the two lovebirds can embark on the life ‘happily ever after’ that typifies all fairy stories, a number of misunderstandings need to be cleared up. Isabel has a twin sister, who is clever and smart but who has an extremely large nose and ears the same. As the day of the wedding comes closer, Isabel sees the ugly mug of prince Ricky as a growing obstacle to her promising him to be eternally true. She tries to find a way out by arranging to swap identities with her twin sister. Complete confusion results, but in the end, they all live happily ever after, all three of them because the game of love, luckily, is blind. Speeltheater Holland presents a 60-minute performance in which the actors play a role, provide a ‘commentator’s voice’, and then go on to manipulating the puppets. The various roles blend and the actors complement each other in one flowing motion. This sublime (combined) play is given free space by the minimal but effective stage setting and the fabulous lighting. The music of Mozart completes the court atmosphere of this playful performance. © Roeland Sprey