Sunny 'Perô' is a tale of night and day, heartbreak and happiness

By Misha Berson, Seattle Times theater critic

A flour-dusted baker romances a sunshine-loving washerwoman, and all magic breaks loose.
So goes "Perô", the most recent collaboration between Seattle Children's Theatre and the Dutch troupe Speeltheater Holland and among the most enchanting.
That's strong praise, given the inventiveness and charm of the four previous shows they have joined forces on, including "Stellaluna" and "Apple to Grandma".
But "Perô" earns it with sparkling music, adorable handheld puppets and a story based on stock figures of European comedy, Pierrot (here called Perô´) and Colombina.

The story, adapted from a Michel Tournier story, "Pierrot or the Mysteries of the Night," is easy to grasp: the sweet-natured baker pines for Colombina. (Both are puppets resembling the Pillsbury Doughboy).
But Colombina works days, while Perô bakes on a nocturna schedule. So like the Sun and the Moon (singing humans here), it's hard to mesh their biorhythms.
When a spaghetti-legged Italian housepainter turns up to brighten Colombina's tall, dollhouselike abode, he also wins her heart â€” as she breaks Perô's.
Happy-ever-after does arrive for the baker. But only after the nimble cast of singer-actors conjures a bounty of whimsical visual effects with human and animal puppets, many mini-props (a tiny washing machine, a roaring baking oven) and a big box that opens up to reveal a vibrant swatch of rural Italy, with fish-stocked stream.
The style of the Edam, Holland-based Speeltheater's stagecraft (wrought by company designer/director Onny Huisink and puppet designer Saskia Janse, with Seattle lighting designer Michael Wellborn) is always ingenious and theatrically sophisticated, but never slick.
And much of the delight is conjured by the cast at SCT, a tireless quartet who keep "Perô´ popping for the under-6 crowd.Vivacious Jennifer Sue Johnson and limber Matt Wolfe are always in motion, playing (respectively) Colombina and Perô´, as well as Paletino (the Italian swain), a fleet of mice, a pair of ducks and sundry other creatures.
Their energy and mastery are matched by musical director Mark Rabe and a marvelous opera-trained singer, Corrina Lapid Munter, who face off on rolling keyboards and play the instrumentals in Guus Ponsioen's score.
And what a score it is! It boasts Baroque chorales, light mock-operatic arias, jazzy passages all suited to the action and to kids' ears.

That doesn't mean "Perô" will only enthrall the tots. For adults who enjoy puppetry and/or imaginative musical theater, European-style, what's not to love?

Delightful theatrical and intellectual pinball

Written by Christine Johnson-Duell Jan 18, 2010

The provenance of Perô (or The Mysteries of the Night), offers a hint about the show itself: an English translation of a Dutch play by Saskia Janse and Onny Huisink, (founding directors of Speeltheater Holland ), Perô is based on a French children’s book (Pierrot, ou Les Secrets de la Nuit by Michel Tournier), and retells a Commedia dell’ Arte story that takes place in Italy. Yep, it is a complex pedigree.
This complexity appears onstage, in the show’s story and action; layers of meaning, emotions, philosophy, and history tell a simple love story, which results in a sort of theatrical and intellectual pinball that is delightful.
The simple story: Perô the baker loves his friend, the laundress Colombina. She washes by day, he bakes by night. This difference is enough to convince Colombina there can be no romance between them. One day, the painter Paletino appears, sweeps Colombina off her feet, and they go on a holiday. Perô’s heart breaks and he stops baking. Paletino and Colombina turn out to be incompatible and she misses Perô. So, she goes home and they work out their differences.
The decorations that hang from this simple narrative line are sparkling, tour-de-force theater. The narrators, Sun (Corrina Lapid Munter, in her SCT debut) and Moon, (longtime SCT music director, Mark Rabe) are temporal taskmasters who add music and whimsy with a touch of petulance in support of their charges: Sun watches over Colombina while Moon is Perô’s companion. Munter and Rabe make acting, singing, and playing an instrument simultaneously appear effortless. The actors (Jennifer Sue Johnson and Matt Wolfe) are puppeteers for the three characters, Colombina, Perô, and Paletino, and confer about the characters in actor roles—the cumulative effect of which made me write in my notes, “id, ego, and superego, dancing a Virginia Reel.” And it works, elegantly.
The complexity was riveting, even for the youngest attendees (some of whom, in the post-performance Q & A were still working out which emotions the characters had portrayed). Jim Jewell, SCT marketing and PR manager, mentioned to me that that SCT tries not to “talk down” to children. That is certainly true of Perô and, again, it works.
The costumes and scenery are wonderful and reflect the show—elegance, whimsy, and simplicity braided together. One set piece in particular, in which Paletino and Colombina go for their holiday, offers some stunning set design. It arrives onstage as a plain black box and transforms, like a pop-up children’s book, to a pastoral scene, complete with sweet miniature puppets.
Perô is a tightly made show that recognizes and celebrates loose ends. It hints at eternal questions like, what is love? Where is home? What does happiness look like? And offers no pat answers. Like all great art, Perô encourages thought. It functions on many levels and cannot be tied up in a tidy package—nor should it be. That would omit so much of what the show is “about.” And, like all great art, it is best appreciated in the moment and for yourself.

Christine Johnson-Duell is a Seattle-area poet and mother of one, who writes frequently for ParentMap about the arts.

A Parent's Review:

By Laura Spruce Wight

Children's theater has the rather daunting task of winning the hearts of children and their parents. Perô, or The Mysteries of the Night, a collaborative production by The Seattle Children's Theatre and the Dutch theater company, Speeltheater Holland, draws both young and old into a seemingly simple story that both entertains and moves the soul. The puppets and sets appear minimalist and even stark, but come to life in magical, unexpected ways that delight the senses. What appears black and white is anything but.

Perô, a Dutch play based on the children's book by Michel Tournier, is about an Italian baker, Perô (played by Matt Wolfe) who works at night, and Colombina (played by Jennifer Sue Johnson), a washerwoman who works during the day. The two childhood friends are kept apart as adults not because of distance, (they live next door to one another in nearly identical simple white houses) but by fear.

Colombina is afraid of the dark, so avoids venturing out at night when Perô bakes and Perô is too afraid to state his love for Colombina outright. Poor Perô closes his bakery “due to broken heart” when the love of his life is swept off her feet by the colorful painter Paletino, who makes the flour-dusted baker pale in comparison. The comedic and touching trio is observed by the self-assured, opera-singing sun (played by Corinna Lapid Munter) and the heartsick, piano-playing moon (played by Mark Rabe).

The story of an old friendship that's tested by the entrance of a flashy new kid appeals to children. The tale operates on another level for parents who watch as a woman runs off with the dashing splash of color, realizes she has lost herself in the marriage, and then returns to her true self and the one who was good for her all along.

The more mature subject matter went over my 6-year-old's head who was enraptured by the simpler nature of the story. She felt very sorry for Perô at “half-time” (what she calls the intermission) and was eager for the play to resume to see what would happen next.

Perô is a play with European flavor that will appeal to audiences here because of its universal themes. It does not condescend to younger audience members – but rather invites them to become emotionally involved with the characters in a way children's theater rarely allows.

From the set design to the plot, Perô is about something simple that resonates more deeply. As I drove home, scanning the storefronts for an open bakery, I found myself hoping that my daughter will somehow manage to avoid the trappings of the Paletinos of the world and see the value of the Perôs, friends who are steady and true. She spent the next day playing with some formerly forgotten puppets, testing out how to make them express sadness, joy, and friendship.

THE TEEN TIX BLOG
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
by Emma M.

Perô is an enchanting boys vs. girls story imported straight from the Netherlands. The girls, Colombina and Sun, are sunny and cheerful, whereas the boys, Perô and Moon, are shy and moony. Perô is a floury baker and Colombina is the pretty girl next door. She’s a washerwoman who likes her whites sparkling. Trouble ensues when the painter Palentino comes to town and Colombina is dazzled by his bright colors. They run off together, and meanwhile poor Perô, who is in love with Colombina, closes his bakery “due to a broken heart”. But Colombina’s romance isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. When her lover bullies her, she realizes her mistake and returns home to Perô.

Perô comes to Seattle Children’s Theatre all the way from Speeltheater Holland in the Netherlands. The actors however are all local. The whole cast shines: Matt Wolfe as Perô, Jennifer Sue Johnson as Colombina, Corinna Lapid Munter as Sun, and Mark Rabe as Moon. The troupe sings, dances, puppeteers and captures the avant-garde feel of Perô so well.

Directed and designed by Onny Huisink co-founder of Speeltheater Holland, Perô has a very playful feel. The sets and puppets are very imaginative, they fold out, light up, stretch out, and roll around. The two houses where Perô and Colombina live feel almost like doll houses, and are simple on the outside but are full of surprises.

Younger kids will love the play’s sweetness, such as the little mice that live with Perô and Colombina. But as Moon says, “Sweet? Sweet? Where does that get me?” The older audience members will relate to the more complex emotions portrayed, such as heartbreak, infatuation, passion, loyalty, and love. When Colombina is pushed around by the painter Palentino, and has to cook him tons of pasta, the kids will laugh at Palentino gulping down pasta. But the adults can appreciate Colombina’s struggle to make the choice to leave Palentino and return to her home.

Four actors and a lively smattering of puppets and musical instruments, Perô is a beautifully crafted European treat that everyone will love!

THE HERALD Edinburgh

Imaginate Festival June 1, 2009

by Mary Brennan

Oh! oh! Consternation in the ranks at Edinburgh's Brunton Theatre ... the ranks being countless six-year olds who are wriggling between giggling glee and shocked surprise at the sight of Colombina discarding garments. Even - omigosh, her bra ... That Colombina is actually a small ragdoll puppet - and certainly not an anatomically correct model of femininity - is of no consequence. Our emotions have been unerringly lured into the story of Pero, or the Mysteries of the Night (****), run ended, and this moment feels real.

The plot is one that will doubtless become familiar to the young Imaginate audience: it's the old "eternal triangle". Shy Pero is a baker who works at night. Next door is Colombina, the laundress who works during the day and is scared of the dark. He loves her, she scarcely knows he exists. Swaggering into their pristine world of white flour, white washing - white houses, white puppets - comes the confident Paletino who introduces Colombina to bright colours, passion and oh no! he marries her. The shock of a briefly-topless Colombina is utterly eclipsed by this new horror.

Even the Sun (Annemarie Maas) and the Moon (Guus Ponsioen) - who together have been weaving a wonderfully sophisticated musical commentary - are drawn further into the tale, as if the humble romance between Pero and Columbina has cosmic resonances. That all the various strands - poetic symbolism, music, puppetry and live performance - come together with such persuasive charm and merry, mischievous comedy owes much to the cast of four in this Speeltheater Holland production. Inez de Bruijn and Tim Velraeds not only animate the little cloth characters but wrangle fiercely over the events as themselves, constantly reinforcing our sense of how much it matters that "night and day" should co-exist in harmony. The working models of little houses and a pop-up countryside are crammed with witty effects to further stoke our imaginations. If Sondheim ever did a musical puppet-play, it would surely be as perceptive, bold and magically real as this.

TITIME OUT (London)

· Rating: 6 stars!

· By Ronnie Haydon

· With a script and score by the gloriously witty Guus Ponsioen (pictured), Michel Tournier’s deep little story of a lovelorn baker’s moonlit travails proves a wicked romantic comedy in an hour-long adaptation by Holland’s Speeltheater.

Perô the baker and Columbina the laundress – moon-faced puppets all in white – live side by side in narrow cottages in the village of Fanghetto. Manipulating them, flesh-and-blood performers Inez de Bruijn and Tim Velraeds are a feisty pair, who find each other irresistible while having their puppet characters’ interests at heart. Overseeing all of this is another mismatched couple: the Sun (Annemarie Maas) and the Moon (Guus Ponsioen), who sit at pianos, sing and fling insults at each other. From these three viewpoints romance takes shape.

It’s the shifting perspectives that create openings for moments of grand operatics and quiet tragedy. Round-eyed Perô’s lonely stoking of his midnight furnace makes for a touching, if heavily symbolic, scene. The comic potential of Columbina’s seduction by leggy interloper Palentino, who turns her head with his lascivious use of colour in a hitherto monochrome set, is saucily explored. It’s tickling to see a bunch of children scandalised by a plumptious female puppet’s shameless come-ons to innocent Perô’s love rival. Even funnier is the short-lived idyll enjoyed by Columbina and Palentino – a sunny countryside paradise that unfolds from a large box, then quickly loses its lustre as the relationship moves into autumnal drudgery.

Swept along on such rollicking visual gags and clever comic songs, doughy Perô rises from zero to hero in this Dutch theatre company’s priceless UK debut.

WHAT'S ON STAGE (www.whatsonstage.com)

Venue: Unicorn Theatre for Children
Where: Outer London
Date Reviewed: 26 September 2008 WOS Rating: 5 stars

Puppet show is too small a phrase for this utterly enchanting children’s play from Speeltheater Holland, based in Edam. Hard cheese if you don’t catch it before 12 October; it’s sexy, beguiling, beautifully performed and designed, with wonderful music and is suitable – I’d like to say compulsory – for anyone over six years old.
Basing his text on a children’s book by the French philosopher Michel Tournier, author and composer Guus Ponsioen describes a poignant commedia dell’arte love triangle of a small town baker, Pero, his bashful Colombina and a cocky Italian house-painter, Palentino.

These three puppets are visibly manipulated by two actors, Inez de Bruijn and Timmy Velraeds, who play out their own romance. And a third layer of involvement is provided by Ponsioen and Annemarie Maas at two keyboards as the figures of the melancholic Moon and the operatic Sun, the one pining for other, the Sun asserting mythical and elemental superiority.

Pero works by night, Colombina scrubs with the washerwomen by day. They occupy two adjacent mobile towers in outline with dolls’ house interiors, lit up rooms, small stairways. The stage erupts in joyous street song as Palentino arrives on his bike with pots of paint, daubs Colombina’s exterior and elopes with her to the countryside.

At this point a large scenic box unfolds to reveals green pastures, ducks on gloves in the river, tiny model sheep and cows. But snow falls on the domestic idyll as Palentino demands more and more pasta. Back in the town, Pero has closed the bakery and filled it with pastry Colombinas. The three strands of romantic impasse are resolved in a rhapsodic waltz.

I'm aware that much children’s theatre combines puppetry with actors, properties with scenic innovation, music with mime, in a whole new genre of theatrical presentation, but I’ve rarely seen anything as outstanding as this production by Speeltheater’s co-founder Onny Huisink. Pero is a perfect work of art on every level and the most delightful sixty minutes in town.

Michael Coveney

From the Blog of Michael Coveney:

You find jewels, sometimes, in the most unexpected of places. The Unicorn children’s theatre by Tower Bridge has simply the most enchanting and delightful piece of theatre I have seen all year and it’s a puppet show from Holland.

Yes, I’ve seen Robert Lepage’s Lipsynch, and Peter Brook’s Fragments, and David Tennant’s Hamlet, and Les Dennis in Eurobeat. But Onny Huisink’s Pero from the Speeltheater in Edam is an unflawed little gem of design, performance, acting and music, a touching and delightful sixty minutes of commedia dell’arte perfection that sets new standards in children’s theatre.

ROQUES AND VAGABOND SITE

Dutch theatre company Speeltheater have arrived at The Unicorn Theatre bearing puppets, music and moonshine. Guus Ponsioen’s adaptation of French author Michel Tournier’s children’s book Pierrot ou les secrets de la nuit has been around since 1994, touring widely and garnering awards. Taking the ancient story of Pierrot, Columbine and Harlequin and fashioning an exquisite puppet show with unusually sophisticated lyrics and music, also by Guus Ponsioen, Perô well deserves its longevity.

Perô the baker is in love with Colombina, his neighbour, but cannot declare himself because he works at night. Perô , like his forebear Pierrot, is a moonstruck romantic. But Colombina, a flirty laundress, works in the day and is a daughter of the sun. The Sun (a haughty Annemarie Maas, possessed of a truly lovely singing voice) perches at a high piano on one side of the stage and the Moon (Guus Ponsioen, dreamier and more fragile) perches at the other side, each vying for their own acolyte. Rollicking piano, breakneck lyrics and a soaring saxophone produce a distinctively European sound, with the gusto and oompah-pah of circus music pierced by lonely echoes of Kurt Weill. One wonderful song is composed almost entirely of types of bread, but sung with such hurtling speed that it was not always easy to decipher every Dutch-accented word.

Visually, this is also a treat. Designers Onny Huisink (also the director) and Vincent Sturkenboom have used a palette of black, white and grey, like a children’s book read by the light of the moon. It is only with the arrival of Perô’s rival in love, housepainter Palentino (Harlequin), that colour appears – reds and blues daubed with abandon, heralding trouble. Perô and Colombina inhabit two tall white houses – and any child who loves dolls houses will adore this – the puppets actually enter and go about their respective businesses. Perô has a bread oven and a chimney that smokes and Colombina operates a washing machine.

One of the interesting aspects of a puppet show is always the relationship between puppeteer and puppet. Sometimes the puppeteer is no more than an invisible presence, totally in thrall to his/her puppet. Sometimes there is a power struggle going on between the two, the puppet a latent force ever ready to take over the puppeteer. Sometimes they are locked, happily or not, into an eternal conversation.

Speeltheater have created something very different, whereby the puppets themselves have no awareness of their manipulators, and therefore show none of the sassiness and delinquency we have come to expect. It is the puppeteers whose role has been extended; not only do Inez de Bruijn (Colombina) and Timmy Velraeds (Perô) manipulate their charges with parental tenderness, they share the same characters. The skittish, vivacious de Bruijn and the gentle Velraeds conduct their own courtship throughout the play and the final, consummating dance of joy at the end thus extends out of the tall white houses and on to the forefront of the stage. It is a liberating idea.

I enjoyed Perô enormously and the audience of young schoolchildren – ages varying from around 6 to 9, I would guess – were enthralled. The late arrival of one school left the teacher of a young class talking loudly to her pupils. Had any of them been to the theatre before, she enquired. Only four of them put up their hands. Lucky kids to have this distinctive show as their first experience of theatre: romantic, wistful, and elegantly European. What a contrast to the brash formulas of a Disney Channel world.

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER MAY 28 1997

Perô or the Mysteries of the Night is a light-hearted puppet play with delightful music, good-humored antics and one or two European plot twists that might surprise the average American parent expecting to sit through straight children's fare. The play is an adaptation from a children's book by the French writer Michel Tournier, and it comes to Philadelphia from Speeltheater Holland. It presents the love story of the little baker Perô for his neighbor, the washerwoman Columbina, who lives next to Perô’s very tall house, in a very tall house of her own.
Perô bakes all night and sleeps all day; he pines under the moon for the unrequiting Columbina, who washes all day and sleeps all night - until a wandering house-painter painter comes along. He wins Columbina's heart, and the audience is led to understand they hop into bed together - af-ter Columbina discards some other apparel. (At this unexpected turn of puppet events, the grade school students who attended the first show screamed wildly.) The story ends on a more predictable note, however, when the over-ro-mantic Columbina gets smart.
The setting is lovely, with just a touch of mystery. The English translation is funny and lyrical. The only difficulty is understanding some of dialogue, and parts of . those wonderful songs because of the Dutch accents of the troupe's singers and puppeteers. E.O.

THE JOURNAL, PHILADELPHIA MAY 1997 Annenberg Center
by Chris Abrams

Perô or the mysteries of the night, is a delightful work of musical theatre. The music created by Guus Ponsioen reminds me of Kurt Weill, and the very best of German or French cabaret songs. The tunes are so charming that I enjoy lis-tening to the compact disc even though all the lyrics are in Dutch. The music is performed live with the composer (rep-resenting the moon) at the keyboard and doubling as a singer and narrator. Stage right is Annemarie Maas as the olympian sun, playing percussion, saxo-phone, singing, and teasing the foolish moon and the love sick mortals.
The story is a simple commedia. Perô, the Dutch for Pierrot, is a baker who is awake at night and in love with Colombina, the washer woman who is awake during the day. Perô is so much in love that he has stopped making bread for the town. Will they ever get together? Will Colombina be happy with the housepainter, Palentino? Will the sad little baker make bread again.
The romance takes place in a timeless, sun drenched, moon soothed, Italian vil-lage and the puppets inhabit neigh-boring large cardboard cut out houses. The hero, who has modest, Kermit--like, simplicity, finds it difficult to com-pete with a more colorful rival. The ten-der romantic atmosphere is spiced with sly wit, and a worldly wise attitude that mixes sweet and sour. To make this tasty souffle, the pup-pets, voices, manipulation, characteriza-tion and direction must be perfectly balanced. Puppeteers Onny Huisink and Saskia Janse, the founders of Speeltheatre, created pure enchantment.

PHILADELPHIA FORUM June 5 1997
by Derik Davis

…Perô from Speeltheater Holland, is a puppet show set in Italy, using commedia figures Pierrot and his true love Colombina – here, a baker and a laundress who live in adjoining multi-storied puppet houses (yes – more marvellous Large Wooden Things).
The staging is complex and wonderfully engaging. Each puppet is handled by a puppeteer of its sex who joins in the action and plays off his/her opposite number. At a third level, seated behind high keyboards on opposite sides of the stage, the Sun (female) and the Moon (male) discuss the characters, banter with each other and direct the action through song and superb use of live music ranging from pop to operatic but roughly centered on lounge music (the Sun, Annemarie Maas, has a magnificent voice). The intricate, unfolding box that becomes the country scene for Colombina and the housepainter is achingly lovely.
Does all end well? Need you ask? Perô and Colombina live happily ever after, the two puppeteers snuggle up, and even the haughty, narcissistic Sun blows the Moon a kiss.