Review: Ragnarok – Manipulate 2024

International Award Winners, Tortoise in a Nutshell‘s Ragnarok is a monumental undertaking, commensurate with its apocalyptic subject matter. A quasi-mythical journey through end-times through the eyes of a young girl, the production is a deft weave of puppetry, dance, live cinema, and music. Their last performance at this year’s wonderful Manipulate Festival brought the annual celebration of visual theatre and cinema to a triumphant end.

Two circles dominate Arran Howie’s memorable set, a screen above and a raised dais below, upon which the talented crew create and destroys our heroine, Aya’s, world. It’s a spectacular undertaking, requiring a continuous choreography of model set construction and manipulation and micro-filming, tracking a continually rearranged cast of clay figurines. There’s a sense that each step, each breath of the three-strong performance team: Emily Nicholl, Dylan Read, and Jessica Innes, is synchronized with live-performing composer Jim Harbourne’s epic and evocative soundtrack.

Narration, or rather testimony, falls to a simple, but fairly effective cast recording. This isn’t an audio-drama replete with masterful technique, and if Odin could use a more iconic voice, Aya and her fellow human survivors enjoy a readily accessible familiarity.

Ragnarok is also rife with symbolism, mostly plucked from Norse tradition, but with more than a hint of the Celtic. The White Stag, symbol of purity and quest animal goads Aya on, whilst Odin’s Ravens Hugin and Munin watch, advise, and commiserate with our heroine for most of her journey.

Beating at the show’s heart is the mantra, “All is lost, all is not lost”, and the idea of death and rebirth. Perhaps a similar metaphor as linked to the Death card in a Tarot deck, or a promise of ecological renaissance post-nuclear winter, it’s for the audience to decide.

Ragnarok is undeniably, and continually impressive, moving between, and combining full-scale visual theatre with miniature topographies. It conveys in sight and sounds a fittingly catastrophic sequence of events, through the eyes of a child but from a God’s point of view.

Now, there’s a risk of anonymity when it comes to the crudely moulded clay figurines, but this is mostly negated through skilful filming and clear narrative structure. However, there are one or two moments where the arrangement of anonymous objects on stage edges towards the baffling.

At its best though, Ragnarok fuses its component parts into a sweeping journey of traumatic revelation. Indeed such masterful interplays of music, puppetry and dance dominate the show’s 75-minute runtime. One set-piece wherein a fondly remembered trip to the country is recalled through live drawing on parchment is one of the finest such exercises I’ve yet to witness.

Such a tale will never want for parallels with the wider world, humanity seemingly unable to break its addiction to conflict whether by gun, or poisonous tweet. Crises beset the world on every level, and chances of real, significant, and sustainable change seem slim. Keep planting those seeds of hope, Ragnarok seems to suggest, even when everything is falling apart. Perhaps the fruit is for another generation, but present cultivation offers meaning and purpose.

Epic in every sense, Ragnarok is a singular theatrical experience. Ambitious doesn’t begin to encapsulate what (Edinburgh treasures) Tortoise in a Nutshell has created. Go and watch them create it afresh should they bring their apocalypse to a stage near you.

Featured Image: Mihaela Bodlovic

Ragnarok is an international co-production between Tortoise in a Nutshell in co-production with Figurteatret I Nordland (Nordland Visual Theatre) and in association with MacRobert Arts Centre.

Ragnarok played The Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh on February 10th & 11th 2024 as part of the Manipulate Festival. For more information, click here.