Taiwan Season: An Adventure of Puppets

An Adventure of Puppets lacks any real story; its focus is instead the daydreams we are provoked into creating by ordinary circumstances when no grand narrative presents itself.

In their cluttered, colourful workshop, two toymakers busy themselves with their respective labours, a boat and a flying machine. One is easily distracted, while the other is quickly irritated. Soon they are tripping over each other, their emnity growing increasingly ridiculous, until civility is saved by the imagination-inspiring properties of their work. Experimenting with components while building their toys, new toys unexpectedly emerge; some interlocking blocks of wood become a doll, while an old mop is reinvented as a puppy. As enraptured as any child, the toymakers launch their creations into typically childlike adventures, singing and dancing, laughing and shrieking, sailing over mighty invisible oceans and confronting monsters born from the workshop's detritus.

An Adventure of Puppets is a modest work – it will not grab anyone's attention with technical fireworks, compelling characterisation or surprising storytelling. It is an exercise in clowning and creativity, and there's nothing wrong with that, particularly in a show aimed at young children. Nevertheless, it is uncertain whether all onlookers will necessarily have the patience for some of it. The unvarying tone, while engaging, renders the show's impish style of comedy repetitive, but if it amuses its target audience, that may be no great loss. An Adventure of Puppets is a beautifully-mounted children's production that may prod young minds towards their own flights of fancy. That alone is worth celebrating.