NOELLE HAMLYN

About Creature

As the first full length Frog in Hand production, Creature was a promenade style work that moved through the abandoned, unrenovated Small Arms Inspection Building – once the workplace of more than 1,000 women making Lee Enfield Rifles for WW II Canadian troops overseas.  The walls of this huge space had witnessed Bond Rallies, and community initiatives intended to ‘keep the spirits high’. 

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As the performance moved through installations of walls made from plaster work shirts, creatures emerged. Dressed in coveralls, these ghost-like vapors exhaled the breath of the former employees – the daughters, wives, and mothers who built rifles to send to their loved ones in a war against the sons and lovers of other mothers in another world.  A world war … to end all wars?  Specters of voices rarely heard. 

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As my first full-length site-specific production, it was incredible to work with the canvas of the Small Arms Inspection Building and to help give voice to alternate narratives that challenged stereotypes, biases, and a gendered telling of history. Immersive sets, costumes and production operations focused on repair, reuse and recycling striving to leave no post production trace but memory.

Production Stills

Set | Costume | Prop Design and Creation by Noelle Hamlyn