“And the little one said roll over, roll over – so they all rolled over and there was room for everyone!”
Steve Tasane’s hour-long play for an aged 3-8 audience tackles issues of immigration in a powerful but accessible way with lots of songs and humour.
Two boys, Naz and Iggy, are friends we find on flat mattresses set next to a tower of cardboard houses. They clutch at eight different pillows, each representing one of their ‘family’ the children no longer there with them.
As they think of food and adventure, we are privy to the games they play and the memories they push away. As the younger boy says, they “couldn’t go through that again.”
Performing to a large group of schoolchildren who enjoyed the amusing way in which this show’s message is delivered, it spotlights child refugees and the human face of those who risk their lives to cross the sea by boat.
Writer Tasane shows considerable personal, professional, and political maturity in Ten in the Bed‘s script. For adults, this is a salutory anecdote to media hysteria around immigration.
Each pillow child is given their own personality, whether curious, happy, or simply too small and sleepy to know, yet.
That these two children in the bed already know the words ‘sanctions’ and ‘consequences’ is sad enough. Realising they have probably seen capsizing boats and worse hits home hard.
Chris Elwell’s direction and Sorcha Corcoran’s set get the most out of performers Hari Kang (Naz) and Hayden Mampasi (Iggy), who totally convince as energetic and cheeky young boys.
This is a happy yet serious play that doesn’t shy away from moral and ethical issues. Who is the weaker or stronger? Who should be fed first? Who deserves to keep a place in bed or boat?
Ten in the Bed is at Half Moon Theatre until 11 Jun, before touring. You can find full details here.
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Image credit: Stephen Beeny