Mabel’s Magnificent Flying Machine: Taking risks at Christmas
Louise Lowe's first play for young audiences is a poignant reflection on personal failure. Photo: Ros Kavanagh
Gate Theatre, Dublin
★ ★ ★ ★
Who in the world can relate to Mabel, the Christmas elf in the Gate Theatre’s delightful play? Whirling childlike from task to task, and often reprimanded by bland mature people around her, there is a good chance that she, in Louise Lowe’s script for young audiences, will find someone to be in tune with.
When we first see Mabel, she is descending from the roof of the Gate Theatre, the rafters of which are jutting out as if something fell through it. The crash site, in Owen Boss’s wonderful design, is backed by a red stage curtain fallen aslant, and is littered with machinery that would sooner find a place in the pages of the Smyths Toys catalogue. Such references feel important – if plays of the genre usually invest in a chatty rapport with their audience, this one is all about speaking their language.
Few actors are as fluent in this vernacular as Caitríona Ennis, whose convincing portrayal of girlish innocence is the work of no imposter but a studied master. As Mabel examines the wreckage of the flying machine she built to assist Santa’s sleigh, Ennis practically hop-scotches between thoughts, punctuating how observations get superseded by imagination, all with the wattage of an ensemble dancer in A Chorus Line. Mabel routinely abandons tasks to speak wisdom via cartoony voices. “People call it the done thing. What they mean is the don’t thing,” she complains at one point.
It’s all the more surprising that these fun, screwy lines are coming from Louise Lowe, the creator of hard-hitting dramas such as The Boys of Foley Street, and whose first play for young audiences make an instant entry into the genre. (It was The Boys of Foley Street where Ennis first appeared to audiences, in another impressively persuasive performance as a child).
With Mabel being a haphazard, untrusted elf (she’s even labelled a “Left Behind”), the play poignantly reflects on the dismissive comments of others, and on the shame of personal failure. “Look with your eyes, not with your hands,” she says, to prevent herself from causing another disaster. The mantra’s familiarity isn’t lost on anyone in audience who wasn’t a child at some point.
Disapproval isn’t the only by-product of curiosity; invention also flows from it. With reference to the innovation of the Anglo-Irish aviator Lilian Bland, Mabel becomes emboldened to repair her flying machine. Whether watching from the stalls, or from the landfill of beanbags near the front of the Gate Theatre’s stage (a layout that’s a departure in itself), it’s difficult not to be heartened by the thrilling displays of design, the participation of grown-ups in the audience seen asking for help, and the reassurance that, in the event of failure, the important thing is you tried.
Runs until 24th December.