The animating force behind The Adventures of Pinocchio is the desire of the wooden puppet to become a real boy. Every scrape and digression is a lesson on the way to that ultimate goal. But what exactly is a real boy? Carlo Collodi would have moral answers to those questions, having laid out a minefield of temptations to be resisted on the road to maturity. But for Rosana Cade and Ivor MacAskill, the story has a different set of resonances.
In 2018, MacAskill came out as trans (“I just feel so much more like myself”), which means he finds Pinocchio’s journey to self-realisation especially poignant. Cade, his on and offstage partner, has questions of their own about where they fit into the story. Is it all about the transitioning puppet or is it also about those who support him along the way? [READ MORE]