This weekend is the final weekend of the incredible DreamBIG Children’s Festival, with still so many wonderful shows on offer.
One of these productions is The Bookbinder. From award-winning company Trick of the Light Theatre comes a story of boundless enchantment. The Bookbinder weaves shadow play, paper art, puppetry, and music into an original dark fairytale in the vein of Neil Gaiman.
The Bookbinder was created by New Zealand couple Ralph McCubbin Howell (writer, performer and production designer) and Hannah Smith (director, pop-up book creator and production designer),
Ralph is a Wellington-based theatre maker who grew up in Waikari in Te Waipounamu. He was a member of the NZ Young Shakespeare Company and completed a BA (Hons) in Theatre & English at Victoria University of Wellington before training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in the UK. Hannah grew up in Ōtepoti and has an honours degree in English and Theatre from Victoria University of Wellington. She received a nomination for Most Promising Director at the 2011 Wellington Theatre Awards, and received the same award in 2013. She has a background in puppetry and paper-art, and her work with Trick of the Light has been performed around Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, the UK, USA, Canada and South Africa.
Both Ralph and Hannah spoke to Glam Adelaide about how The Bookbinder was created and what it is about the performing arts industry that they both love.
RALPH:
“I never expected to be able to make a career of it, so that has been a happy surprise. We started making work together because we love creating theatre. I’ve just been able to ride that wave. But in terms of what really draws me to this art form, to the performing arts, is the storytelling. Being in a room together – there’s something magical about that that is very different in other mediums. You can do amazing things with film and you can do amazing things with books, but it’s not a conversation in the same way in theatre. Especially in a show like The Bookbinder – I’m talking directly to the audience, which means the performance varies each time and it has this different energy each time. And I find that really exciting.”
HANNAH:
“I think I just have always loved playing and making things up. I love that I’ve been able to make what lots of people see as a hobby my actual job. I love taking something and seeing what I can turn it into and how it can work into the piece of theatre we are creating.”
Not only are Ralph and Hannah business partners, but away from work, they are a real-life couple. We asked Hannah how they find that work-life balance.
HANNAH:
“It’s kind of a magical privilege, I think, to find someone who’s so in tune with you in all aspects of your life. It does mean we’re not very good at work-life balance. Maybe we are the true masters of work-life balance, because our work and our life are one. We can go from talking about what we’re having for dinner to solving a problem that’s in a show to answering a contracting email in the space of five minutes.”
The creation of The Bookbinder is a rather remarkable story that Ralph shared with us.
RALPH:
“It was sort of a happy accident. We had just made a very big show that had a cast of ten and a kinetic water sculpture and was quite political. We often bounce away from the last thing we did and then make something very different. Somehow we’d got a space lined up to put on a show, which was going to be in a secondhand bookshop. But we didn’t have a show. Originally we were planning to adapt an existing picture book but couldn’t get hold of him to get the rights. So we were just about to pull the plug on the whole thing when we thought ‘well, we’ve got this space and we had a little bit of funding that the council had given us, so why not come up with our own show?’
“At the same time, a friend of ours happened to meet a real life bookbinder in a tiny town on the South Island of New Zealand. He lived totally off the grid, made his own clothes, and rode a penny-farthing. We felt that we should meet him and have a chat as he had trained as a bookbinder through an apprenticeship in London. There was something that excites us about bookbinding in that it’s crafting books, but also the parallels with crafting stories. So through meeting this bookbinder, we crafted a show about someone who has to repair books as a way to repair the story within them.”
Like a lot of theatre, The Bookbinder has continued to be developed over time.
HANNAH:
“It all happened pretty fast and furious. Before our first season, we put the show together in three weeks. That included writing the script, making the props, rehearsing the thing. So I would be making this pop-up book in one room and Ralph would be writing the script in another room. We’d sort of shout ideas back and forth. We initially did something like 24 performances over two weeks, and we would often change things around after a show if something didn’t work. It was a hugely rewarding experience and we cannot believe how the show has developed and changed over time.”
This weekend, there are two incredible performances of The Bookbinder, which is the story of an old man who sits down to read the tale of a bookbinding apprentice. As he speaks, the story spills from the pages and into the bindery. The Bookbinder weaves shadow play, paper art, puppetry and music into an original dark fairytale full of mystery, magic and mayhem.
RALPH:
“We find Australian audiences often will laugh a lot and really get into our shows. Whereas audiences over here in New Zealand can be a bit more reserved. So performing in Australia is always a lot of fun. I think because The Bookbinder balances the light and the darkness, it means I can sort of lean into both elements. You can go darker if the audience is really on board with the comedy, and then that kind of makes the comedy burn brighter.”
HANNAH:
“My favourite part of the show is this bit where Ralph opens the pop-up book and pictures appear for the first time. There’s not much light in the show, but the light that is there dims down, and you can feel the whole audience all lean forward and all breathe in as one. That’s the best moment.”
The Bookbinder
Institute Gallery, State Library of South Australia
17 May, 2025 at 11am and 4.00pm
Runtime: 55 minutes
https://www.adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au/whats-on/the-bookbinder
Photo credit: Phillip Merry
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