Endling

An ‘endling’ is the last living creature of its kind.  What are its needs?  In what sort of environment could it thrive?  Here is another show from Barking Spider Creative that invites children from four to eight, to imagine themselves first, as other beings, and then as participants in saving a threatened creature in a threatened environment.  

It begins with the kids – about a dozen the day I saw the show – coming into a performance space and forming a ring around ‘facilitator’ Laura Aldous.  Mums, Dads, carers and other interested adults watch on from the sidelines.

‘Facilitator’ is such a corporate word for what Laura Aldous does because she has a kind of charm and warmth that works magic with the kids.  One little girl in a pink princess tulle tutu climbs onto Laura’s lap for a cuddle.  Within seconds she has the kids’ total attention and within a few seconds more she has each of them pretending to be trees waving in the breeze, a rippling stream, flying bats and swimming seals.  Some kids do hesitate, checking out if Mum or Dad is watching – and approving – but most are swept into an imaginary world where anything can happen… 

Laura explains what an ‘endling’ is and asks what such a creature needs.  Sure enough, the kids know: water, food, safety…  Some kids are troubled by the idea of the Endling being the last. 

A curtain parts, and there she is – the Endling.  She’s a puppet, made and manipulated by Penelope Bartlau, but the kids treat it almost immediately as alive, and some reach out stroke it.  For us adults, it remains a puppet, but the way the kids throw themselves into this world is amazing.

Beyond the curtain, there’re a couple of platforms, a bare dead tree – and a big screen on which an image of a bare, denuded landscape appears.  Now the kids discover boxes of stuff with which to create an environment for the Endling – and they go straight to work.  It’s a scene of busy activity.  The kids all want to help.  Some are concentrated and intent; others just pile up stuff so that the Endling has a soft bed.  The ‘stuff’, provided by designer Jason Lehane, is shredded paper, soft packing material, lengths of cloth, tubes of various sizes, and (plastic) rocks.  As the Endling retires to her bower, various sounds of Nature can be summoned by a touch on a computer screen.  The bare landscape on the screen (animation by Bartlau) sprouts plants, leaves, birds, and butterflies…  And the kids have transformed this space into a habitat.

Endling is an ‘interactive installation/performance’ piece which seeks to ‘tackle climate anxiety’ and replace it with hope; to show that all is not lost.  It does this, not by telling, but by having the kids doing – and at the end of forty-five minutes they’re all smiling and so are the parents.

Michael Brindley

Photos: ArtPlay staff