THE DOLLS HAVE A SLIDE NIGHT

A group of dolls remind us that all dreams start small.

Everybody 'plays' with dolls in different ways. Dolls serve many purposes - avatar, plaything, effigy and friend. When the dolls open up about their lives, they reflect the desires, anxieties, fantasies and unmet needs of those who play with them.

Rachel Ang about directing the show with Mischa Baka in 2007

Some of the slides

THE DOLLS HAVE A SLIDE NIGHT

Project description

Give close attention to children playing and eventually you may be able to see and remember the imaginative world they are creating. By keeping the puppeteers visible as they move and give voice to dolls, this show similarly presents the concept of children playing. The audience must use their own capacity to play to accept the illusion of the living dolls. The puppeteers' captivating manipulation skills also help this illusion.

As the dolls present slides and describe images of shoebox houses and other toys as real houses and real friends, the idea of imagination and play comes into effect again. But this time we see that the dolls are stuck in the imaginative worlds that the children have bestowed upon them. These worlds are often humorous. We see the hopes, desires, unmet needs and anxieties of the children manifested in the dolls and their lives.

Eventually we meet a new doll. She sees a " cute little cottage with whips of smoke in the chimney," as nothing more than a shoebox with a cotton ball on top. The other dolls are adverse and eventually devastated by this doll's perception of their world. Through this doll we begin to glimpse the story of a real life little girl who is disillusioned with life and is not wanting to play.

All the other dolls treat the new doll as an outcast except for one. This brave doll eventually convinces the other dolls to listen and they both tell her story. The brave doll reveals its own part in the story as well as the corresponding actions of its owner.    Although darker and more grounded in real life events, this dolls story still conveys the importance of imagination and play. We see how playing has informed and strengthened their children's real life decisions and actions. As the dolls continue with this story they begin to act out the final stages of the dramatic events that have effectively changed their children's lives for the better.

This show presents the imaginative world of children and then puts that imaginative world into the context of the children's real lives and events. By doing this we see how the two worlds, imaginative and real, connect and effect each other.