Theatre

Flipside 2023: Chimpanzee

Organised by: Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay Performed by: Nick Lehane (USA)
  • Date:
    26 - 28 May 2023
  • Time:
    26 May, Fri: 8:00pm
    27 May, Sat: 3:00pm & 8:00pm
    28 May, Sun: 3:00pm
  • Duration:
    1h
  • Venue:
    Esplanade Theatre Studio
  • Language:
    Non-verbal performance
  • Admission:
    Standard - $38
    Students, NSFs, Seniors & PWDs (Limited) - $30

    Esplanade&Me Specials
    Black & White: 15% savings
    Discover: 10% savings (Limited tickets)

  • Advisory:
    Admission Age: 12 and above.

Synopsis:

"An extraordinary and heartbreaking piece." – The Theatre Times

"Chimpanzee is in itself a master class in puppet manipulation" – MonTheatre

An hour in a theatre, a day in a biomedical facility, a lifetime in the mind of a chimpanzee.

Chimpanzee is based on the stranger-than-fiction stories of chimpanzees raised as children in human homes, in a series of cross-fostering experiments conducted in the United States.

In this "deeply felt nonverbal memory play" (New York Magazine), a chimpanzee reminisces about the comfort, curiosity and freedom she had growing up in a human family, a contrast to her bleak present-day reality in a biomedical facility.

Shifts in time and place are conveyed through exquisite, lifelike bunraku style puppetry and haunting sound and lighting design.

"To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us." – Frans de Waal, primatologist and ethologist

Chimpanzee premiered at HERE Arts Center through Basil Twist's Dream Music Puppetry Program, with the support of The Jim Henson Foundation and Cheryl Henson.