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OP1 - PIXIEMATOSIS

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For adults and ages 13+

50 mins - no interval

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Written, constructed and performed by Marc Parrett​

Mostly mime / minimal text​

PIXIEMATOSIS features puppet representations of death, violence and burial​

This show also contains strong language and audio representations of military conflict

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Review by Andrew Cowie for The British Theatre Guide

Marc Parrett’s theOBJECTproject is a Leeds-based theatre company who mix puppetry, clown and automata. Marc was a founder member and artistic director of the children’s theatre company Stuff and Nonsense, and his work has a childlike sense of play and a Grotowski Poor Theatre minimalism, so anything can be brought to life, whether it’s a watering can, a hat, a bottle or anything else. theOBJECTproject’s web site says "celebrate the real", and he does. Parrett’s work is based on the joy of stuff: no back-projection, no sleight of hand, and absolutely no AI here, just a collective act of the imagination.

Pixiematosis is a post-lockdown cry of hope in a despairing world. Parrett starts in role as an explorer looking for a magical pixie kingdom. With the aid of a map, a bit of audience interaction and a freaky flying eyeball, he finds it and from then on he is a puppeteer only.

The set is a pair of step ladders meticulously dressed with grass, a tree, a house and bits of vegetation. Various creatures live happily in the tree, but the house is occupied by an aggressive old man. He sows crops, and he is impatient when they don’t instantly ripen. When he goes fishing, he is infuriated when he catches nothing. The natural world fails to perform as required, so he urinates all over the garden and, in a final gesture of contempt and disgust, he urinates on the audience, too.

Two new creatures, Karen and Blinky, arrive. They are a legacy from an earlier theOBJECTproject show, The Elves And The Shoemaker. They have lived happily together on a shelf in Marc’s workshop ever since, and they live happily with each other in the pixie kingdom, too. When the angry man meets Blinky, their peaceful idyll is shattered with tragic consequences.

If that sounds like whimsy, it kind of is, but it really isn’t. In an interview, Parrett said he makes work for adults that is childish, and that describes Pixiematosis. Some of the models are exquisite pieces of miniature engineering—the bonfire in particular is enchanting—but other items are just random bits of rubbish anyone could retrieve from their bin and turn into a model. He manipulates his puppets the way a child plays with their toys; there is no illusion, he just picks them up and walks them around and gives them voices.

The simplicity of the presentation belies the thought and emotion that lie behind it. At one level, Pixiematosis is a parable about the environment: if you look after nature, nature will look after you, but you abuse it at your peril. But Karen’s grief for Blinky is real, and there is a religious, Garden of Eden iconography in the apple which appears on the tree and in the closing image of a newborn child who gives us her blessing. She says, in French, “the children play in the garden. The leaves fall, the ants crawl. This is not the end of the story. The universe grows, the universe shrinks. Let’s just hold each other tight and enjoy the ride.”

So it’s political, personal and spiritual, but nothing is spelled out. We are invited into Parrett’s playground, and between him, his models and our own imaginations, we create the story together. The audience engagement continues after the show when we are invited up to talk to him and to play with the puppets. It all adds up to a powerful expression of creativity and the shared experience.

I absolutely loved this show. At one level, it’s fifty minutes of a man playing with toys, but it has a depth and heart that transcend the simplicity of its construction.

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