Stories in Half

There was always time before we capture it at that moment of “being once”; and “ever after” is obviously that which continues. Toddlers breathe, smell, see, hear and touch the world around them. Stories in Half works with this exact principle of toddler theatre, and presents a play where pieces of a story can be experienced in their formation rather than their finitude. Only when we reckon with that which is being made can we appreciate how making is felt, seen, heard and experienced.

The play works with the concept of the warp and the weft, to experience how stories can be woven or unwoven — nonetheless always forming a pattern, or the promise of one. Using hand weaving looms designed and modified for the stage, it invites toddlers and adults alike to enjoy the monotony and hypnosis of rhythmic sounds and spoken words, and to see how crafting a weave is immanent yet shot through with the tragic and the joyful.

A play which shows and lets a story be heard, rather than tells one.

We believe toddlers do experience the anticipation, suspense, fright, waiting, expectation and laughter built into stories, even if they do not have the faculty of language as yet. On stage there are threads, patterns and weaving through looms, while the actors work at tying and untying knots — and in so doing present a story in half, to be told and continued and experienced at the moment of its own making.