The Cat in the Hat | Theatre review
Katie Mitchell, although expert in exploring the extremities of the human condition, is not the first name one associates with light-hearted theatre aimed principally at three-to-six-year-olds. And, while her adaptation and production of the Dr Seuss classic is quirkily playful, it misses some of the wildness and anarchy that has endeared the book to children for five decades.
Seuss followers will know the form: two bored, middle-class kids find a solitary wet afternoon enlivened and disrupted by an extravagantly hatted feline. The simple story is all about desiccated order destroyed by merry chaos, but the point is somewhat undermined by Vicki Mortimer's design, in that the actors have to bring on all the furniture and props with them to prove that they are creating domestic disaster. The impending return of the children's mother is also nothing like the fear-inducing moment it should be. And the actors need to learn to engage more naturally with the audience: at the moment, it's all a bit twee and well-behaved.
Some of the visual and aural ideas work well, however. The plopping sound made by soggy tennis balls is nicely caught by Paul Clark's music. Angus Wright's lean and furry feline turns an umbrella into a flute, essays golf shots with a garden rake and balances books, cakes and a milk dish on his head and arms while standing on one leg. And Justin Salinger, who spends most of the play with his digits stuck up a puppet goldfish, displays much the same fear of territorial invasion as when he played Stanley in The Birthday Party.
It's all perfectly charming, but there's a madness in the Seuss story that Mitchell hasn't yet caught.