Shockheaded Peter and Killing Kids for Their Own Good (Theater Review)
Imagine pitching this idea: Teach children how to behave through a series of cautionary tales in which each young protagonist dies. In one a little girl plays with matches and burns to death. Then in another a parent cuts off his son’s thumbs to prevent him from sucking them. And yet another turns a cruel child into a chew toy for a dog.
What? You don’t see Disney making this?
Shockheaded Peter not only serves up these grisly tales but has a rollicking good time doing so.
What is Shockheaded Peter?
Let us begin with the source material. The musical Shockheaded Peter takes inspiration from the 19th century German book Struwwelpeter Heinrich Hoffmann wrote for his kids. The book contains ten illustrated and rhymed stories. Each story has a brutally clear moral about the often fatal consequences of bad behavior. So after the play, my friend noted that his German mother remembered those stories. When I asked what she thought of them, he said, “I think she was scarred by them.”
The play effectively reminds us that despite all the sugar coating Disney has applied to fairy tales, children’s literature has a long and deliciously dark history.
Julian Crouch and Phelim McDermott created Shockheaded Peter in 1998. In addition, the Tiger Lillies contributed the original music and lyrics. Originally conceived and produced by Michael Morris in London, the play delivers equal parts Bertolt Brecht and Rocky Horror. Or imagine a seedy German cabaret act directed by Tim Burton.
Shockheaded Peter at San Diego’s Cygnet Theatre
As staged by Rob Lutfy, Shockheaded Peter makes for wickedly funny and outrageously inventive theater. Taking his cue from the original production, he mixes music, dance, pantomime, and puppetry to present a series of moralistic tales.
Also noteworthy, the sets and costumes draw heavily on the look and style of the original illustrations. So everything has an exaggerated and surreal quality so you feel trapped in a crazy nightmare.
Costumer Shirley Pierson explains in the press notes, “Many images have helped shape and frame the design language being used. The strongest influences for me have been the picture book itself, German Expressionism, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Tim Burton, Grand Guignol, and Commedia dell’ Arte.”
Additionally, her design aesthetic for the costumes, masks, and puppetry “has been focused on distortion, scale, gender amalgamation, and a controlled color palette.”
She incorporates several types of puppets from hand to partial body puppets. She also uses headpieces, masks, and shadow puppets. The use of puppets means deaths — from incineration to decapitation — can be ingeniously done on stage in perversely stylized ways. Pools of red light often signal the demise of a small child, although I wish when the thumbs were snipped off that yards of red ribbon had unspooled from the stumps to show the lad bleeding to death.
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- Shockheaded Peter at Cygnet Theatre draws inspiration from the 19th century German children’s book, Struwwelpeter.
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- Sarah Errignton as the MC in the Cygnet Theatre production of Shockheaded Peter. Photo by Daren Scott
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- Steve Gouveia as the Siren in the Cygnet Theatre production of Shockheaded Peter. Photo by Josue Castro
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- Marc Caro-Willcox, Isaac Kalimo, Adrian Alita, Kevane La’Marr Coleman, Donny Gersonde, and Danielle Airey in Cygnet Theatre’s Shockheaded Peter. Photo by Daren Scott
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- Steve Gouveia and Sarah Errignton in the Cygnet Theatre production of Shockheaded Peter. Photo by Daren Scott
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- Sarah Errignton and Danielle Airey in the Cygnet Theatre production of Shockheaded Peter. Photo by Sean Fanning.
The cast adds to the appeal of the play with its an irresistible energy and malleability. Specifially, the superbly talented Sarah Errington and Steve Gouviea grab the spotlight as the MC and the Siren respectively. Plus, Michael Mizerany’s choreography enhances the play with its inspired depiction violence and horror.
No Place for Warm and Fuzzy Sentiments
However, one thing felt out of place — a closing moment of love and kindness. I might agree with the sentiment that every child has unique beauty, but such warm and fuzzy feelings don’t mesh with the rest of the play. It comes across like an olive branch held out to anyone who might be offended. Plus, the play just works better as nasty fun and showing the ridiculous lengths to which the righteous can go to teach a moral lesson.
As a final note, this production of Shockheaded Peter arrives at a time when everything risks offending someone and pressure exists to avoid such risks. So a play about the gory and gleeful demise of children goes counter to the notion of playing it safe. But then Cygnet says in its mission statement that it believes in “the power of theatre to startle the soul, stir debate, and embrace the wide diversity of the community it serves.” Kudos to Cygnet and its creative team for being fearless in pursuing that goal.
Shockheaded Peter runs through June 18 at Cygnet Theater in San Diego.
Siri Hafso, Danielle Airey, Steve Gouveia, Sarah Errington and under the covers, Marc Caro-Willcox in Cygnet Theatre’s Shockheaded Peter. Photo by Daren Scott.
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