The Bookbinder was named one of the top picks of the Sydney Fringe, and rightly so. The New Zealand based theatre company, Trick of the Light Theatre, knows how to captivate an audience.
Found at Better Read Than Dead in Newtown, a tiny boutique bookshop located on the busy King Street strip. The show was sold out, and the chairs were squeezed together into two long lines facing a shelf of books and the show’s stage (a few lamps and a desk riddled with old books, binding materials, and a jug of water). The brochure, craftily designed to look like a page torn from a dusty old book, tells us that the show premiered at a tiny book shop nestled in Wellington for the New Zealand Fringe Festival and, as the season went on, had to increase their capacity “from fifteen to fire hazard”. The same seems to have happened for their Sydney debut, which made for a very intimate experience. The show benefited from this close-knit set up though; it’s all about storytelling and we all know storytelling happens in the most intimate places.
The Bookbinder is immediately engaging and pulls you straight into the story – the tale of a young apprentice bookbinder who “cuts corners” and fails to properly bind a book owned by an old, mysterious woman. He is then catapulted into a dreamy underworld of chaos and magic and told he must bind the “gap in the world” in order to pay penance to his failure to bind the old lady’s book properly. The only actor on stage is Trick of the Light Theatre’s co-founder Ralph McCubbin Howell, who begins the show by explaining that if we want to become a bookbinder, then we better hear his tale of a bookbinder’s apprentice. This brings us straight into the story, leaving no time for dawdling. The Bookbinder is quite a unique story, moving at a fast and engaging pace because of Howell’s comedic skill and excellent puppetry, and by the compelling narrative written by Howell himself, story by Howell and Hannah Smith, fellow Trick of the Light Theatre founder. His writing is equally as exquisite as his acting, and it truly feels like we are reading a book instead of watching a play. The program tells us that this is the intent, saying “we wanted to make something that was intimate and immediate, engaging and surprising – kind of like reading a book”. This sort of theatre, in our day and age, when everyone is reading electronic books as opposed to books printed on paper, is much needed. Especially for the younger generation, who may baulk at the sight of a hard copy book that one has to physically turn pages in order to enjoy.
The Bookbinder is a heart-warming and haunting piece of theatre. It was raw and scary, yet playful, using lighting tricks, puppetry, sound and the pressing intimacy that exists in most Fringe show venues with incredible skill.
If you missed The Bookbinder in Sydney, catch their next performance at the Melbourne Fringe Festival from September 19.
