Panto has never been reluctant to mess around with traditional fairy tales and, originally, Pinocchio was not given anything like a romantic subplot by author Carlo Collodi.
However, it was inevitable that in FM Productions’ panto version at the Manoel Theatre, Edward Mercieca and his fellow authors would have brought in such an element.
Panto has always been a medley of broad farce, popular songs and dances set to popular music. Panto directors, such as Chris Gatt in this production, try to bring in spectacular effects. In this case there was the aerial swooping and traversing of the Blue Fairy and others and actors walking on stilts.
Set technology has become even more sophisticated, provid-ing scene changes that are pleasingly rapid and sometimes surprising. The use of efficient stage revolves has made a great difference and so have computerised lighting effects.
A funny Dame is still important, of course, but it is no longer the be-all and end-all. Mercieca’s Dame Saltimbocca, while looking as garishly grotesque as ever, is funny.
One particular scene was a well-thought and very well stage- managed send-up of The Twelve Days of Christmas carol. Mercieca’s singing is as good as ever, but what I did not expect was his use of a higher tone of speaking voice than his normal one. This tone did not sound quite right and, fortunately, he discarded it from time to time.
One of the Collodi characters retained is that of the afore-mentioned Blue Fairy who, in Larissa Bonaci’s strongly sung, danced and ‘flown’ perform-ance, is one of the production’s mainstays.
This panto keeps up the tradition of sending up social and political misdeeds and omissions
There is nothing weak about her and even her one courting scene with David Chircop’s Jimmy – Disney’s Jiminy Cricket, transformed into a good-looking, pleasant human who is quite inept at being Pinocchio’s conscience – she may play at being coy, but it is clear she knows very well what she wants. Daringly and satisfyingly, fairy and human end up being a couple.
The other Collodi characters in the panto are the deceitful Fox and Cat, who turn out to be rather nicer and more amusing in this version, as performed by Michael Mangion and Antonella Mifsud respectively. These are two slick performances and the one duet they sing is one of the best of the evening.
The chief baddy, and the only one to come a cropper at the end, is unrelated to the Collodi story. She is a royal who has imprisoned the rightful queen, her sister. She plans to marry off her niece, the Princess Esmeralda (Maxine Aquilina) to a commoner, the mountainous and ill-tempered Stromboli (Joe Depasquale), and then usurp the throne. Her name is Kontra de Mitz (rings a bell?) and all she does is unscrupulous.
Despite her magic powers, an invasion of characters on land and of one flying fairy finally defeats her and her monstrous hench-men. Tara-Louise Zammit is a sleek Kontra, with nothing grotesque about her and it is only her persistent rudeness to the audience that makes her come-uppance so satisfying.
Aquilina’s Esmeralda is a good-looking girl with a good voice, but with not much personality. The young man who wins her heart, Niki Andrejevic’s Fonzi, is another pleasant singer and establishes himself in the audience’s mind as a guy whose strange gestures and gesticulations, if far from aristo-cratic, impress his loved one’s heart.
In the show I saw, Pinocchio was played very well by the young Ben Tonna, whose nasal diction was due to the large nose he was given at the start, a nose that grew and diminished in full view of the audience in the character’s first scene, something that does not happen again during the production.
Pinocchio, though appearing in several scenes, is really a secondary character in this show. He does glory, however, in his final scene where his trans-formation into a flesh and blood boy occurs with a piece of stage magic. Renato Dimech makes the best of Geppetto, the carpenter who makes the wooden Pinocchio and loses his grumpiness at the magical end.
The chorus look good, sing and dance well and Kris Spiteri’s band provides the liveliest of music without ever drowning the singers on stage.
This panto keeps up the tradition of sending up social and political misdeeds and omissions, with both Joseph Muscat and Conrad Mizzi getting quite a few barbs, stinging but never cruel.