Review: Red Fortress, Unicorn Theatre

Written for Culture Wars

At once admirably and hopelessly idealistic, Carl Miller’s Red Fortress pits three children of different faiths against the tyranny of the Spanish Inquisition. In dreaming of “a city where children learn no hate, a land where no one is an infidel”, Miller might as well take to the stage himself and announce that he has a dream. Nonetheless, his original children’s play tells a captivating story with wit, charm and emotion.

In 1491, Granada is the last Islamic city holding out against Queen Isabella’s pillaging Christian armies. Among its poverty-stricken residents are the raspily playful Rabia (Géhrane Strehler) and Luis (Jack Blumenau), a Jewish boy with a flair for engineering. The pair, in conjunction with bravado-filled Christian Iago (John Cockerill) and the naive bravery of children, set on an amorphous quest to save their city.

Tony Graham’s lushly atmospheric production treats its young audience without patronizing, conjuring up a delicate exoticism through suspended rugs and the sway of Tunde Jegede’s music. However, while the core plot is gripping and original, too much is crammed in around it. Ideas surrounding science and faith, religious extremism and artistic rebellion – not to mention a tightly squeezed love triangle and a stand-up set from Christopher Columbus – jostle together to overwhelm the narrative.

It’s a shame because Strehler, Blumenau and Cockerill make a marvellous trio at its heart: bickering, joking and dreaming. They play with finesse, balancing the communicative largeness needed in children’s theatre with emotional subtlety superbly.

At times, Graham’s direction is too reliant on the mystery of flying properties in and design, slowing the pace and swamping the action. With refining, defining and clarifying Red Fortress could be lively, intelligent children’s theatre. As it is, Miller’s script emerges from the meandering chaos as a wonderful novel too large for the stage.