The Book Thief

Theatre

21 Feb

Written By Mesmer

This dynamic musical interpretation of the popular book was restaged in 2023 for performances in Coventry and Leicester. It charts the journey of Liesel, an adopted Jewish girl, through the rise of the Nazis and the Second World War.

An ambitious collaborative staging by Good Teeth Theatre added video design by Dick Straker to the storytelling using Mesmer’s studio animators. This enlivens and illustrates the multilayered set using rear and front projection across the scenic panoramas, townscapes and internal emotional world. In the dramatic climaxes the descriptive visual language expands into Liesel’s transcendent visions as she struggles and ultimately survives the surrounding horrors.

A clever use of Qlab5 and projector lens and rigging enabled seven planes of projection including moving sliders to be covered from only three projector positions. A hallmark of Mesmer is the extensive knowledge of complex staging with projection to achieve affordable and compelling results.

“Design studio Good Teeth’s set appears bleak at first, sparcely industrial but is soon submerged in projections of Himmel Street and the colours of death, thanks to Dick Straker’s projections and Nic Farman’s lighting.”

Katie Reviews

“The simple but effective set by Good Teeth combines with video projections from Dick Straker to seamlessly move us from cellars to libraries, trains to village streets and even to the Berlin Olympics.”

Broadway World