Smoking Apples in Seemingly Invisble

In a dreary grey city, lonely figures perform a daily dance from home to office and back again, so absorbed in themselves they are unaware of the stream of characters and potential relationships that pass them by. They will always notice the weather of course, and cast irritated glances at looming rain clouds before retreating further inwards, surrounding themselves with defensive walls. The gaze of a stranger will be awkwardly avoided, fearful of the possibilities such a connection may bring. Imagine what would happen if they were to stop for a moment, and really see each other?

At London’s Blue Elephant Theatre, Seemingly Invisible is a heart-melting play, especially for those hardened by fast city-living, about the magic found in the simplest of human exchanges. Performed by the Smoking Apples Theatre company, a team of four talented puppeteers – Harriet Field, Blake Alexander, Matthew Lloyd and Molly Freeman – the play combines physical theatre, puppetry, live music and story-telling, and aspires to “ignite its audience’s imagination”.

And ignite it does with the help of a small white puppet, playful and mischievous, curious and fragile, that invites the characters to an alternative reality, where the routine and mundane are replaced by an enchanting unknown. We’re reminded by the narrator that “in a fraction of a second everything can move, everything can be moved” and by hiding our faces behind newspapers we close ourselves off to the infinite possibilities waiting behind the slightest action.

The play is an intense hour of few words. It captivates, as the mind tries to understand and define the white puppet, however as the story itself reveals, we have to learn to see things differently if we are to break free from the predictable and ordinary.

Using sound and movement, the Smoking Apples create a hypnotic rhythm that accompanies the characters’ journeys from separate, timid and cautious, to being brave and open, building to a moving crescendo when personal barriers are truly taken down. Seemingly Invisible is certainly surprising, quirky and a little gem of a play.

Seemingly Invisible is playing at the Blue Elephant Theatre in Camberwell, London until Saturday 1 October.

To book tickets call +44 (0) 20 7701 0100, or see the Blue Elephant Theatre’s website.