Reviews — Nanna s.o.s. Nanna!

Trouw,wednesday oktober 8th 2003 Anita Twaalfhoven 
Angels have English lessons

The Speeltheater based in Edam has a new theatre hit. Last season, the minute TV star Poppentje was 'on tour' in a musical theatre show. In the children’s performance 'Nanna S.O.S. Nanna!', guardian angels boogie through space to the music of the well-known DJ Don Diablo. The artistic duo Onny Huisink and Saskia Janssen continually rejuvenate puppet theatre by combining various art disciplines in their plays. In 'Nanna S.O.S Nanna!', they work with Don Diablo and the choreographer Sassan Saghar Yaghmai. The theatre performance is an adaptation of the children’s book 'Glittras Uppdrag' by the Swedish author Peter Pohl, who attended the premier in the Amsterdam childrens’ theatre De Krakeling. The expressive prints of the adventurous little boy Martin and his family step onto the stage as cardboard puppets in varying formats. Two actresses recount Martin’s story with fervour. He is very fond of keys and opens doors that a little boy had better kept shut. But for those of you who didn’t yet know: every child has a guardian angel who watches over him or her in the afterlife. In a luxurious, white velvet blanket of clouds these angels glide around ethereally. There’s the ‘emerald-green angel of content', the ‘tobacco-brown coloured angel of responsibility' or 'the yellow-green angel of laziness', who often argue about the big questions of life on earth. Martin’s angel is simply called Nanna and she lives at Cloud 13, where she doesn’t get a moment of peace. To introduce the existence of the angels, the actresses Nelleke Zitman and Jeannette Huizinga give the audience an ‘Angelish’ lesson about the comings and goings in heaven. This is at times very funny, but sometimes seems too explicit in this poetic story. The set of ‘Nanna S.O.S. Nanna!' is a poetically illuminated young child’s dream, with a table full of sand to represent the earth and a stack of sheepskin clouds you would love to dive into. The music collage made by DJ Don Diablo, who mixes Gregorian chant with techno and trance, makes the atmosphere less soft and suits the rough turn the story takes. Angel Nanna is faced with a hard decision when the lives of Martin and his girlfriend are in danger. A guardian angel is allowed to do odd jobs on the edge of existence but must never interfere with man’s destiny. If she does, she loses eternal life, if she doesn’t two children die. Nanna makes the choice every child in the audience hopes for.