Little Otik

Little Otik is a surreal mixture of social commentary and satire with fairy tales and horror. Co-produced by Vanishing Point and the National Theatre of Scotland, the play is an adaptation of an acclaimed and award-winning Czech film from 2000.

The story centres on the plight of Karl and Bozena Foster, a loving couple that have been unable to conceive a child. Out of playfulness, Karl brings Bozena a tree branch and calls it a child. Unexpectedly, Bozena takes the branch and immediately bonds with it, calling it their ‘son’. What follows is a morality tale. The Fosters find themselves having to adapt their lives to accommodate their ‘child’, making choices that at first begin with simple lies but lead to the murder of several characters.

The story itself may not be the most accommodating to an audience, and with its surreal roots a few leaps in logic are required. Audience members willing to makes those leaps will be rewarded with a solid production that manages to amuse and horrify; those who cannot will be left cold, probably finding the production ridiculous at best.

The performances are sturdy all-around. Sandy Grierson and Louise Ludgate have the difficult task of playing the Fosters and do a great job. They manage to play the affection, obsession and desperation of their characters well, and it’s easy to feel for them both. Equally solid are Ann Scott-Jones as neighbour and garden-enthusiast Mrs. Hawthorne, and Rebecca Smith as Elspeth, the bratty neighbour kid who acts as both unreliable narrator and foil to the Fosters.

However, it’s the production team that act as the true stars of the evening. Led by director Matthew Lenton, the production revels in technical splendour. Kai Fischer has created, literally, a dream landscape. His angled set of loose earth, barren trees and a stand-alone swivel door would fit in well with the best of Dali’s paintings. Christopher Shutt’s sound design has a cinematic feel to it, heightening emotions and creating both humour and tension throughout the performance. Finn Ross’s projections give the production an added epic sense. Numerous images of babies, clouds, birds, buildings, fireworks and blood are projected throughout the stage, effectively adding to the action as the plot unfolds.

And Ewan Hunter, who also acts as a doomed postman, has created a compelling monster with his puppet interpretations of the ‘child’. What could have been laughable and destructive to the production is in actual fact a balance of wonder and sheer terror. Like most effective monsters, the audience is only allowed to see minimal aspects of the creature, allowing one to fill in the blanks with their own interpretation of the horror.

Little Otik is a challenging work that manages to both entertain and thrill with its bold choices. Those that are willing to follow the production’s logic will find a lot to enjoy; those that refuse to make the required leaps will find much to criticise and hate.