Civic Theatre Tallaght

FANS OF Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of the Snow Queen will be disappointed by the adaptation of the story which is the Civic Theatre’s Christmas show.

A co-production between An Grianán Theatre in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, and the Donegal-based dance theatre company, Fidget Feet, the 90-minute show (which had a pre-Christmas run in An Grianán Theatre) is poorly directed, with a storyline that is confusing in parts.

The tale begins and ends with a group of circus actors who have been fired from the Blizzard Circus by their boss, The Snow Queen.

Vicki McManus’s underwhelming performance as the Snow Queen is at the heart of the problem of this production. We expect a huge stage presence from this evil character and although McManus mesmerises the audience with her agile and graceful aerial dance in one scene, she fails to entrance us the rest of the time.

The parallel tale of the two friends – Gerda (Chantal McCormick) and Kay (Stephen O’Rourke) – out skating on the woodland lake, has the potential to charm but that too falls flat.

Again, the problem is that the actors only really impress during the aerial dance scenes.

McCormick, who is also the choreographer on the show, is a nimble aerial dancer who works well with O’Rourke during the skating scenes, but she is unconvincing in her grief when she discovers (from the Raven, cleverly played by Lee Clayden) that Kay has been captured by the Snow Queen.

Even when she does finally get help to save her friend from the evil queen, we are ambivalent about the outcome.

Director Gavin Marshall might have kept the audience on his side if he had turned the entire show into an aerial dance performance.

The colourful costumes, beautifully designed by Paul Shriek, and original music written by Jym Daly, would then have been the tasteful touches that would have allowed the Snow Queen to be the entrancing alternative to a pantomime that it deserves to be.

The Snow Queen continues at the Civic Theatre until January 8th