The Griegol

Synopsis

Asian Premiere

A wildly inventive, wordless fantasy of love, loss, and monsters

The Griegol follows a child in the week leading up to their grandmother's funeral, as they start to suspect they are being pursued by the smoke-demon shapeshifter of the old woman's stories. An elegant, imaginative fantasy in the vein of Spirited Away, the play explores a child's understanding of grief for a cross-over audience of adults and older children. Unfolding like a silent film made live before your eyes, the work is eerie and affecting, but also playful and engaging, with a throughline of light and love that carries through the darkness.

With an original score by Emmy award-winning composer and sound designer Tane Upjohn-Beatson, the wordless work is performed by four actors and a live musician, utilising techniques from silent film along with silhouettes, smoke, puppetry, and live animation. With the backstage operations kept in plain sight, audiences can see both the stage effects and how they are made. Combining hi-fi with lo-fi technology, and the mythic with the everyday, The Griegol is a charming, moving, and wildly inventive work.

First performed at Auckland Arts Festival in 2021, it was selected for the Mid-Atlantic Arts Trust's Performing Arts Global Exchange programme to tour the East Coast of the USA. At the 2022 Wellington Theatre Awards, it won Director, Composer, and Production of the Year.

Photo Credit (Hero Banner & Thumbnail) : Philip Merry / axylotl photography

About the Artist

Trick of the Light Theatre

Trick of the Light is an award-winning theatre company from Aotearoa/New Zealand, founded by Hannah Smith and Ralph McCubbin Howell in 2011. They make and tour original theatre works and are renowned for their engaging, nuanced stories and inventive design – often for a cross-over audience of older children and adults. Their work has toured across Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia, the UK, the US, South Africa, Canada, and the Chinese Mainland. Previous works include Suitcase Show, The Road That Wasn't There, Tröll, and The Bookbinder – a solo show that has toured from multiple sell-out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe, to the Lincoln Center in New York, to the attic of Aotearoa/New Zealand's oldest bookbindery. 

Remarks

1. Free seating.
2. You are recommended to arrive 15 minutes before the event starts. Latecomers will be admitted at appropriate times.
3. Student Pass holders may queue on-site for available seats.
4. Programmes are subject to change without prior notice. HKPAX reserves the right to final decision regarding programme arrangements.