A fairytale featuring a gothic marionette family won the hearts of adults and children alike at Brown’s Mart Theatre. One of only a few events for children in this year’s Darwin Festival, Hatched is the culmination of a two-year labour of love for its creator, Asphyxia. Inspired and determined to make her own puppets after a chance encounter with a master puppeteer in Guatemala, Asphyxia then taught herself how to use them.

The play begins when two characters step onto the stage carrying suitcases. These turn out to be giant story books, which, when opened to the delighted ‘ooohs’ of the young audience, reveal three miniature sets – a crypt, an apothecary, and a sewing room. Obsessive in their detail, they draw us into the world of an unusual family, the Grimstones.

Like the puppets she has created, Asphyxia does not speak in the play. Deaf from a young age, she uses the expressive visual language of Auslan to narrate while Paula Dowse interprets. Both m…