Nick Lehane
CHIMPANZEE
Barbican,
The Pit
UK PremiereTue 21 - Sat 25 Jan
Tue - Sat 7.45pm, Sat mat 2.30pmThis event has now ended
Runs:
60 mins / no interval
Age Guidance: 12+ (contains scenes that some people may find upsetting)
£18*
*Membership, Young Barbican, under-16, student, school, access, group and business discounts apply
£3 transaction fee applies online.
£4 transaction fee applies by phone.
Tel: 020 7638 8891
After-show discussion:
Thu 23 Jan
more venue details >
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Three highly skilled puppeteers invest feeling, expression and delicately nuanced movement to the beautifully crafted creature of this poignant non-verbal production, which conveys shifts in time and place through haunting sound and lighting. Written and created by Brooklyn-based Nick Lehane, it is distilled from the real stories of apes once fostered into American families only to be abandoned to science as they reach maturity.
Download a digital programme >
In this extraordinary and heartbreaking puppet play, a life-sized chimpanzee escapes the despair of her captive existence by piecing together memories of her childhood in a human home.
Now from her solitary cage in a biomedical facility, she reminisces about the comfort, curiosity and freedom she had growing up in a human family. Our chimp’s bleak present-day reality switches into vivid recollections of discovery and delight: scarves float into the air from a storage box, a teacup fascinates, opera music plays, a tiny toy baby is carefully cradled to her chest.Three highly skilled puppeteers invest feeling, expression and delicately nuanced movement to the beautifully crafted creature of this poignant non-verbal production, which conveys shifts in time and place through haunting sound and lighting. Written and created by Brooklyn-based Nick Lehane, it is distilled from the real stories of apes once fostered into American families only to be abandoned to science as they reach maturity.
Download a digital programme >
"Gorgeous … a meticulous, deeply felt memory play"
New York Magazine"A delightful and superlatively moving account of memories and dreams"
Berkshire Fine Arts
Nick Lehane
(USA)nick-lehane.com
Creative team
Nick Lehane - Creator, Director and Designer
Marika Kent - Lighting and Associate Set Design
Kate Marvin - Sound
Ayumu ‘Poe’ Saegusa - Associate Lighting
Avery Orvis - Associate Sound
Puppeteers
Rowan Magee
Andy Manjuck
Emma Wiseman
Presented in association with Barbican
Supported by The Jim Henson Foundation and Cheryl Henson
Supported by The Jim Henson Foundation and Cheryl Henson