Snail and Rocks

Snail and Rocks
Writers: Astra Milne, Miah Tito-Barratt
Shopfront Arts Co-op, Camden
August 29 – September 1, 2024

Perfection is what we should all be striving for, right? But is losing who you are in the process worth it? Astra Milne and Miah Tito-Barratt brilliantly tackle this idea with full force in Shopfront’s latest production Snail and Rocks. In this new fantastical comedy, we travel through vividly created worlds as we learn that it is okay to not be “perfect”.

We meet our two main characters in the woods one night: Snail (a small snail) played by Olivia Harris, and Rocks (a human!) played by Jaz, who have both chosen to escape from the strictures of their respective lives and the pressures they feel to conform to expectations. After realising they can communicate with each other, they come to envy the other’s life, mistakenly believing that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Their strong desire to trade places suddenly summons Ordis, the god of order. Ordis tells them for their wish to come true they will need to be perfect and climb to the top of their food chains or the world will change for the worse. We are then taken on a wildly imaginative journey as the protagonists climb the corporate ladder of modern society.

Humour is used deftly throughout. When Snail and Rocks enter their new worlds for the very first time, they are entirely unprepared. Snail stumbles into an office building and presents a series of cute drawings and is hired at a corporate paper company while Rocks has a run-in with an overly sensitive bear in charge of forest creature employment. The naive and confused pair quickly find themselves saddled with stressful responsibilities.

At each step Snail and Rocks falter briefly, confessing that they aren’t really enjoying their careers. This causes the world to change, the ground becomes slime, gravity disappears and the world turns sideways. The only way they can rectify this is by taking it back and proclaiming how happy they are and how much they love their jobs.

Eventually, they become the leaders in their respective fields, but Snail and Rocks reach a breaking point. They can no longer pretend they are happy. Things start to change again but this time Snail and Rocks let it happen, watching the world tip on its side. Snail and Rocks surprisingly adapt to their new reality, opening a stall together to sell equipment that caters to the new environment. Forest creatures and humans alike take joy in buying items such as special slime boots. Rather than a typical hero’s journey of call to action and triumph, we see “the joy, pain and humour that comes from learning to let yourself not be perfect”.

By stripping back the staging, the set consisting of little more than boxes with the actors themselves creating the space and context, we are forced to concentrate on the dialogue. This has the effect of heightening our awareness of their predicament, without being distracted by the fantastical nature of the story. Our two main leads deliver surprisingly convincing performances given the nature of the topic and the ensemble cast works skilfully together, creatively embodying different animals and humans.

It is so important for the future of theatre that productions like these continue to be funded and shared.