Succulent

In a lush and jungle-like garden, it is spring. The birds are twittering and giant blooms nod in the wind. The music is expectant and new. The garden is a place for new beginnings. There is just a hint of playfulness and the future monstrous garden.

Succulent was a theatrical production incorporating puppetry and live action, produced by Terrapin Puppet Theatre, as a part of Insatiable at the Peacock Theatre, Hobart. 

Like in L'Apres Midi d'un faun, the garden 'gives birth' to a new creature - a young girl emerges. She has been hidden, asleep under a giant leaf, but she is tickled gently into waking, as the leaves and tendrils are stirred by the wind. The young girl starts to explore the garden, stroking the flowers in a childish, playful way, sniffing them, picking a circular leaf and using it as an umbrella to twirl, playing hide and seek with a bee. Again the garden is playful, but not over-powering. The girl rubs herself against a feathery leaf, or a stem, there is a hint of sexuality, but it is an entirely innocent exploration...

The girl's voice over of simple Haiku poems come contextualizes the floral space she finds herself in, and her fascination with it.

A giant stand of lilies becomes illuminated on stage. The girl sees them and is transfixed. Like Persephone in the Greek Myth, she is attracted to them and wants to pick them.

She waits, and in her waiting we anticipate her urge to go to them. At the same time, there is a sense in her that she would try to resist if she could, but it is beyond her control, she is like a moth to a flame. The girl’s urge to possess the flower becomes paramount - she can no longer hold back. The girl reaches for the flower and her face rubs it's petals and stamens. She is not innocent now, she is motivated by something stronger; her desire. She licks the flower, petals, stamen, stem, pulling at its petals and leaves, seducing it, and being seduced by it. By the end of the voiceover, she is ripping at the flower, driven by a powerful force.