Petra, Otchaly and her brother Jeff find a bar of chocolate. When they want to pick it up, the three children, played by Cecilia de la Jara, Adrienne Lejko and Tony Milano, tumble into the cocoa archive together with the audience via a red string tied around it. This is how an enchanted journey into the tangled paths of the past begins for children aged eight and over at the Dresden children’s and youth theater “tjg”.
A large mirror hangs diagonally above the action so that the audience can examine the finds from the archive with the three of them. At the same time, the reflection turns the floor into another stage. On their journey, the children are guided not only by their longing for chocolate, but also by the magical spirit of Mrs. Cocoa.
As if by magic, she appears as a floating cocoa pod above the heads of the three and speaks to them seemingly out of nowhere. Daniil Shchapov, the voice of Ms. Kakao, turns the large mirror into a 19th century optical illusion technique: Pepper’s Ghost. The mirrored pane appears to be transparent at the same time and, as if in a dream, opens up a view of another stage space.
The laws of nature are suspended on stage
It’s not just the rules of gravity that lose their validity there. Here the children meet ghosts of real and fictional creatures such as the chocolate Hansi – a Dresden chocolate advertising icon from 1895, the Spanish colonist Hernán Cortéz from the 15th century and the Easter Bunny.
But the story of the beloved sweet begins much earlier in the piece: Cocoa originally grows in Mesoamerica and was consumed by the Maya long before Europeans arrived there. The three children then set off on a huge paper ship to the Brazilian mangrove forests, an important hub for the intercontinental trade in cocoa.
Things get scary for Jeff for a moment between the roots of the trees sticking out of the salt water, but Petra and Otchaly quickly come to his aid. Your path continues, across the ocean to the “chocolate capital of Dresden”. When a storm hits, the children turn into fish – this makes the journey faster and more fun.
When they arrive in Dresden, the three admire the Elbe beach and Otchaly chats curiously with Liotard’s nameless chocolate girl in the picture gallery. But like Hansi and Cortéz, the girl doesn’t want to give any of the treats to the children – an unfair meanness, Ms. Cocoa also thinks. Finally is Chocolate is there for everyone.
A successful evening
The directing trio succeeds in addressing historical content in a way that allows children to have ambivalence and spans large arcs with attention to detail. With a lot of sensitivity and a desire for playful, fantastic storytelling, the Belgian-Beninese artist Pélagie Gbaguidi, the Brazilian author João V. Guimarães, together with the puppet theater’s artistic director, Petra Szemacha, weave a story that is gripping and funny, without leaving out difficult topics.
The Racism on chocolate collectibles For example, it is clearly named and briefly explained without the piece losing any of its lightness as a whole. The audience’s reactions also show this: there was a lot of giggling, gurgling and laughing. The artful interweaving of optical illusions, live music and masks creates an exciting evening of theater for young and old.