Het Filiaal are a ‘youth and music theatre’ group based in Utrecht. Through a combination of acting, music, puppetry and animation with a large helping of humour, they deliver the moving, if mildly bizarre, story of Miss Ophelia, which has just won the prestigious Zilveren Krekel (Silver Cricket) award for ‘most impressive production’ in The Netherlands.
Despite her parents dreaming of her growing up to be a famous actress, Miss Ophelia grows old in the prompting corner of the theatre where she has worked all her life, whispering forgotten lines to the actors on stage. However, she gets to see all the best plays and she loves it.
When the theatre closes due to dwindling audience numbers, Miss Ophelia finds herself befriending the shadows that belong to no-one, abandoned like her in the now empty theatre. At home each night she reads them all the plays and tells them all the stories she knows.
One day, to cheer her up, the shadows start performing one of her favourite stories, but they get the words muddled and she prompts them. Soon a small crowd of children gathers round to watch, and before long they are an international theatre sensation, touring the world.
Finally, Miss Ophelia dies and she and her shadows, which now emerge fabulously real and colourful, tell their stories in the light forever.
The story was told with great enthusiasm by one female and one male actor, who skilfully made use of a variety of devices to bring a visual realism to the text. With a centre piece of a model theatre that, through the use of a projection screen, some cardboard cut-outs and a little imagination, was also able to portray and frame the different settings and characters, the story was surprisingly brought to life. Music and sound effects were used to add a dash of wit and humour to an already rather clever and playful staging.
There was a lot in this for adults – and indeed much of the laughter came from the older members of the audience with much of the humour, I think, flying over the heads of the wee ones. It was aimed at those aged 6+ and certainly entertained at that level. However, the timing of the evening performances, starting at 7pm, was perhaps a little late, with a few of the younger members of the audience beginning to curl up sleepily on parents’ knees by about half way through.