The Little Match Girl

Directed by: Dan Jemmet
Produced by: Bureau Dix & polimniA
Coproduced: by Hans Christian Andersen Foundation, Theatre de la Ville (Paris), Grand Theatre du Luxembourg, Vereinigte Bühnen Wien

On a terribly cold and dark New Year’s Eve, a poor little girl wearing no hat or shoes is trying to sell matches on the street. She leaves her home wearing a pair of slippers too large for her feet, but looses them. One is snatched by a boy who runs away saying he could use it as a cradle; the other one is nowhere to be found. So the little girl keeps walking, red and blue from the cold, snowflakes falling on her long, fair hair. Fearing her father, she doesn’t dare to go home before she has sold some matches.

Desperately trying to warm herself, the Little Match Girl begins to light her matches one by one. As she lights each matchstick, a new fantastic image appears in front of her, only to disappear as the match looses its flame. The first image is that of a hot iron stove. Next she sees a fully-decked table, complete with a stuffed goose. The third image is a beautiful Christmas tree with candles and ornaments.

When the match goes out, the Christmas lights rise higher and higher and she sees a shooting star. The Little Match Girl remembers her dead grandmother, the only one who had ever loved her, and who had told her that a shooting star is a dying person’s soul going up to God. She lights another match. In the light she sees her old grandmother. “O take me with you”, cries the little girl, hastily lighting all the matches to try to prolong the vision. The grandmother takes her up to heaven, and in the morning the little girl’s frozen body is found, a smile on her face.

Music & Lyrics: Martyn Jacques
Set Designer: Dick Bird
Performed by: The Tiger Lillies
Actors: Laetitia Angot, Bob Goody

Comments:

The Tiger Lillies are lighting up "The Little Match Girl" with their special blend of world music, jazz, eerie falsetto and subtle raven-black sardonic wit. While never quite as racy, raucous or blasphemous as some of the trio's previous stage works […], the overall tone is of a mesmerizing, mystical chimera.

Variety

The velvet melancholy of Martyn Jacques’ voice and the sad Hans Christian Andersen story project dreamy images of rare force.

TOLLWOOD FESTIVAL