Goblin Fruit: Head Trick explores the dueling powers of love and temptation

“We must not look at goblin men,

We must not buy their fruits:

Who knows upon what soil they fed

Their hungry thirsty roots?”

“Come buy,” call the goblins

Hobbling down the glen.

– Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti

Rebecca Maxfield’s Head Trick Theatre concludes its 2018-19 season with Goblin Market, the musical theater adaptation of the poem by Christina Rossetti that has entranced and bewildered readers since its publication in 1862 (originally penned in 1895). Rossetti claimed that the piece was not intended for children, but went on to publish several children’s poems, insisting that Goblin Market belonged in that genre. Endless study and interpretation of the work has cast Rossetti’s intent as being everything from anti-Semitic to a thinly veiled study of Victorian sexual mores and/or feminist/homosexual propaganda. However one views the original poem, it has fascinated and enchanted readers for well over a century and, among several adaptations and cultural references over the years, was turned into a musical by Polly Pen and Peggy Harmon in 1985.

The story centers around two sisters, Laura (Sarah Dunn) and Lizzie (Sophie Adickes) who return to their childhood home where they must face the “perils and fantasies” of their youth. This haunting chamber musical sees the wilder Laura chafing against the limits of her ordinary life and succumbing to the lure of “the goblin fruits” and the mysterious world they promise. It’s up to the cautious Lizzie to face down the goblins and save herself and her sister from their darkest selves. Maxfield, who also directs this production for Head Trick, said, “Polly Pen and Peggy Harmon’s musical adaptation adds so many interesting questions about memory and storytelling and female testimony to a poem that’s been the subject of a century and a half of interpretation. The sisters are choosing to tell and to relive the story of these traumatic events many years later.”

Rich in symbolism and sensuality, this retelling of Goblin Market explores the dueling powers of love and temptation, as Laura and Lizzie risk their lives, their bond and the Victorian world they know for the otherworldly offerings of the goblin market.

Maxfield said she’s particularly interested in the idea of the “frame story” of the sisters remembering the events of the original poem and how that device recurs in her work with Head Trick. “The Cradle Will Rock (which Head Trick produced in 2016) was another show we did that was told largely through flashback, and in the same way in that one, it was interesting to lean into the liveness (a term that appears in Head Trick’s mission statement) of it and explore what it meant for the characters to relive the events. The same actors play the sisters and the goblins. We talked at the beginning of the process, in light of the ‘what does it mean that you’re retelling/reliving this now’ idea, about what the actors felt the goblins represented to them… there have been so many interpretations since the poem came out that relate it to sexuality or sexual violence or drugs or race or capitalism and whatnot. And the general consensus seemed to be that in this production, we would be thinking to some degree about the goblins as shadow selves – the darker aspects of the sisters’ characters that they can’t express, the ability to be weird and powerful and travel outside their little sphere. The adaptation having the sisters also play the goblins really facilitates that.”

The ability to finally come to terms with past trauma and past violence is a major element of the story, said Maxfield, and is eerily prescient in today’s climate.

Goblin Market concludes Head Trick’s “Making a World” series, which tasks audiences with joining the performers in creating new worlds through innovative approaches to three classics. The season opened in July 2018 with an outdoor production of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing at the Roger Williams National Memorial and continued in October 2018 with a celebrated production of Lillian Hellman’s Watch on the Rhine.

“This is the most outright ‘fantasy’ of the three pieces in our season that’s about escapism and fantasy,” said Maxfield. “Much Ado was about taking traditional ‘escapist’ summer Shakespeare and changing elements that made it less escapist as traditionally performed, like Hero’s taking back this guy who’s been awful to her, or Beatrice and Benedick ending up as a happy straight couple after talking for the whole show about how they’re not interested in the opposite sex, so that it was still a comedy happy ending for everyone watching. Watch on the Rhine was about an American family that thinks the rise of Nazism in Europe doesn’t really touch or affect them, learning that there is no bubble away from that and they do have to take a stand. With this season, we wanted to ask: Is there a world we’re running to, when we say a play is escapist? And does that world look the same if you’re a woman, or gay or a person of color? It’s really about the purpose of the stories we tell each other and ourselves.”

Head Trick Theatre presents Goblin Market by Polly Pen and Peggy Harmon – music by Polly Pen, adapted from the poem by Christina Rossetti. Directed by Rebecca Maxfield, Musical Direction by Billy Petterson and Choreography by Carson Pavao. Mar 29 – Apr 7. AS220 Black Box, 95 Empire St, PVD. Tickets: (* Thursday Pay-What-You-Can) Online pre-order (bit.ly/goblinmarket2019) or door. Free with Brown/RISD student ID. For more information, visit www.headtricktheatre.org or email: headtricktheatre@gmail.com.