EdFringe Review: The Gummy Bears’ Great War

We never do learn precisely why the Gummy Bear nation declares war on their neighbours, The Dinosaurs. They certainly don’t feature in the office chats of the two human-sized ‘Dinosaurs’ who administer Dinosaur society, well, not until war is declared upon them.

We do learn a great deal about many of the individual gummy bears who will first prepare and then undertake the doomed campaign. From Bright Yellow to Dirty White, beneath miniature spotlights, their innermost thoughts are brought to life through increasingly impassioned narration. If there’s humour here, it’s due to the absurdity of the set-up, not the actions and fates of those involved. When Raspberry Red takes their heels to deliver the declaration of war, his tiny size, and frantic gait are funny, but his fate is pretty brutal.

Italian masters of tabletop theatre, Batisfera take their gelatinous cast very seriously indeed.

There’s a rhythmic poetry to the seven chapters of Angelo Trafo’s ‘The Gummy Bears’ Great War’; a relentless march to disaster, told through the hopes, fears, and terminal philosophies of the Gummy Bear nation. It turns out it is possible to invest in the fate of an individual gummy bear, if brought to life through simple but effective table-top puppetry and flowing narration, in a pitch-black room.

“Italian masters of tabletop theatre, Batisfera take their gelatinous cast very seriously indeed.“

This sense of rhythm, perhaps march to war, is only enhanced by the relentless day/night cycle which frames and contains the action. Performers Valentina Fadda and Leonardo Tomasi deploy the show with practised ease and narrate it with easy lyricism. The projected subtitles, be warned, may be tricky to see if you aren’t seated in the front row, or on a higher chair behind.

Oddly enough, the Dinosaur interludes are needed to break up the fatalistic ideas coursing through the every-gathering gummy bear army. The Dinosaurs aren’t the worst villains you’ve ever met: they didn’t start the war, and are as mystified as the audience as to why it’s happening at all. Whilst they try to work it out, the entire gummy bear populace is forced to ponder the meaning of their entire existence.

For out on the battlefield, gummy bears are being killed, traumatised, and shaped by a conflict which escalates through action, music, and skilful lighting. As the war reaches its momentous crescendo, so Tchaikovsky’s Sugar Plum pas de deux soars to its romantic heights. Bears die, heroes are born, but is meaning found? Or is war simply hell?