Review: PENGUIN, Live Theatre Newcastle - Tour
Live is a theatre space blessed with a slightly more alternative performance space, a corner stage in a large room, which allows a sense of intimacy, perfect for Penguin, the tale of Hamzeh’s exile from Syria as told through the series of flashbacks that brought us into his life, and his world.
The skeletal framework of the set, adorned with white sheeting like sails, stand over the clothes rails and shelves littered with props and costumes. As the house lights fade, we are greeted by the voice of Waseem, Hamzeh’s brother, who introduces one of the most notable aspects of the production – the use of dual projection, with English on the left and Arabic on the right, providing subtitles throughout, and reinforcing the central theme of multiculturalism.
Co-creator and performer Hamzeh Al Hussien and dramaturg Lindsay Rodden have crafted Hamzeh’s history – his time in the Za’atari Camp, the plight of his family hiding in caves in Syria, his first flight, his time in his new home of Gateshead – masterfully; it is a tragic story, yet one laced with hope, humour, observing the beauty in life often through the most ordinary of objects – a hat, a pair of trainers, or indeed his faithful marbles.
As the show opens, we are first introduced to a recurring motif – the athletic and almost frantic creation of a circle of chalk in the centre of the stage. This ‘playing area’ is revisited before each vignette is performed, adding layer and layer of chalk dust to the floor. This circle becomes the map of the encampment in Jordan as Hamzeh walks us through life with some 84,000 others – a statistic delivered in his typical tongue-in-cheek style through a series of numbers scrawled in chalk on the downstage playing area, engaging in back-and-forth with the audience to do the maths.
Audience engagement is a key tenet of the performance, indeed, with the house lights regularly coming up to allow Hamzeh to fully engage with the audience; two spectators become participants in a game of marbles as they pass their time in the camp with Hamzeh on stage; a lady in the front row holds a blue marble high to represent the moon; a basket of Syrian lemons are passed around to allow a multi-sensory experience.
The plot shifts back and forth through time, as Hamzeh regales us with cheeky exploits of the Syrian equivalent of apple scrumping and hitchhiking on ambulances, before his life, and that of his brother, is upended to Gateshead. There, we see the humorous incidents involving smoke detectors and mobility scooters before things take a darker turn, and we jump back to the Syrian bombing and “Screaming. Children Screaming” or the crash of his mobility scooter as he heads to visit the Angel of the North. The chalk circle on the floor, which he runs through regularly, covering his clothes in a fine dust, becomes symbolic for the war-torn Syria of his homeland and his ‘otherness’ as he sits on his first flight, to the UK.
It is in the final vignette, visiting “The Angel!”, that Hamzeh takes great solace, comfort and pride in this ‘otherness’ as the set, designed by Jida Akil, comes to represent the iconic structure – it takes nearly 40 minutes before Hamzeh refers to himself as “Penguin”, the derogatory slur used to describe his disability, but at no point does this deter him. “So I’m a Penguin”, he declares, with pride, as underneath swells what the subtitles refer to as “Uplifting Arabic Music”. Uplifting stuff, indeed.
A joyous and uplifting story of hope in the face of adversity, and of celebrating the individual.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Scott Edwards
Penguin plays at Live, Newcastle, until 23 September before continuing its tour. Further information can be found here.