The House with Chicken Legs at HOME
Kristy Stott, Theatre Editor
Featuring a variety of brand-new commissions, world and UK premieres alongside adaptations of cult classics and some of our favourite returning artists, HOME has recently announced a brilliant theatre programme for Spring Summer 2022.
Exploring themes around identity and self-knowledge, the ambitious, co-produced season features seven co-productions including a fresh reimagining of Sophie Anderson’s award-winning book The House with Chicken Legs.
A powerful exploration of ancient storytelling and one young girl’s search for freedom.
The wonderful children’s story will be brought from page to stage by the award-winning theatre company, Les Enfants Terribles. Hailed by The Guardian as “a talented company with a very sure sense of its own distinctive storytelling style”, the company are the masterminds behind the Olivier-nominated Alice’s Adventures Underground. Perhaps most excitingly, this production marks Les Enfants Terribles first new stage production in 10 years and two decades since the company was first founded by Oliver Lansley.
Inspired by traditional Slavic fairy tales, The House with Chicken Legs offers a powerful exploration of ancient storytelling and one young girl’s search for freedom. Told through a fusion of live music, puppetry and theatrical magic, Les Enfants Terribles bring Anderson’s story about Marinka and her unusual house to life. This is a beautiful and thought-provoking play focusing on a young girl’s struggle with destiny, responsibility and grief.
Told through a fusion of live music, puppetry and theatrical magic…
Marinka longs to have a normal life – a place where she can stay somewhere long enough to make friends. However, her house has chicken legs, a will of its own and often moves on without any warning. The powerful and feared Baba Yaga rules Marinka’s world; guiding spirits between this world and the next, Baba Yaga is also Marinka’s grandmother. Marinka dreams of taking control of her own future and sets out to break free from her grandmother’s footsteps, but her house has other plans…
The perfect blend of folk tale and coming-of-age narrative.
Produced in Les Enfants Terribles’ unique and striking visual style, audiences will be transported to an enchanting Yaga world of spirits and secrets. For this brand-new adaptation, the company will join forces with English singer-songwriter Alexander Wolfe, costume and puppetry designer Samuel Wyer (Ocean at the end of the Lane, National Theatre) and the award-winning video designer Nina Dunn (The Shark is Broken, Edinburgh Fringe/West End). Completing this impressive line-up of creatives is set designer Jasmine Swan (Lava, Bush Theatre) and lighting designer Jane Lalljee (Giraffes Can’t Dance, Leicester Curve).
Sophie Anderson, author of The House with The Chicken Legs commented, “I am beyond thrilled that The House with Chicken Legs is being adapted for stage by the award-winning Les Enfants Terrible. They have the perfect aesthetic to bring Marinka’s story to life, and are planning an array of incredible music, puppetry, projection and stage design. The show is going to be utterly magical.”
Recommended for ages 9+, The House with Chicken Legs is a stunning celebration of storytelling – the perfect blend of folk tale and coming-of-age narrative. Heartwarming, beautiful and sassy, the show navigates the complexities of grief and loss alongside the importance of finding your own place in the world.
