Thursday, April 23, 2015

The Bookbinder


The Bookbinder written and performed by Ralph McCubbin Howell from a story by Ralph McCubbin Howell and Hannah Smith. Directed by Hannah Smith. Trick of the Light. C Block Theatre, Gorman House Arts Centre. April 17-18.

The month should not be allowed to pass without a brief mention of a tiny show that passed through Canberra Youth Theatre’s doors from New Zealand with an enchanting and intriguing story to tell.

Surrounded by the tools of the bookbinder and various sources of light Ralph McCubbin Howell as The Bookbinder tells a wry and compelling little story about a boy who finds more than he expected when he is apprenticed to a bookbinder in a seaside town.

This is one of those small scale pieces of theatre that uses cunning cut outs and pop ups and shadows and storytelling and loads of theatrical imagination to pull the audience in.   It’s dark and funny and full of a compelling sense of morality.

A full house on the final night of a very short season clearly found that bookbinding could be spell binding.

And the good news is that later this year CYT will collaborate with Long Cloud Youth Theatre to present 2014 Bruce Mason Playwriting Award winner Ralph McCubbin Howell’s Dead Men’s Wars, a new contemplation of the matter of ANZAC. 

See
for more information on Dead Men’s Wars at CYT including auditions.
See
for more information on Trick of the Light and The Bookbinder.

Alanna Maclean