The work of picture-book author Shaun Tan has been translated to the stage several times, notably The Arrival (2009) and The Red Tree (2017). The latest theatrical adaptation of Tan’s is Cicada from West Australian company Barking Gecko. The adaptation is by Arielle Gray, Tim Watts and Luke Kerridge, with Gray and Watts also performing, while Kerridge directed.

Cicada, Barking Gecko Theatre. Photo © Mac1Photography

Previous stagings of Tan’s work tended to combine a central actor or actors with puppets or animated objects. For Cicada, however, a small hand-puppet (constructed by Tamara Rewse) is the star of the show, contributing to a pleasingly modest, intimate ambience throughout. Gray and Watts perform behind a low, grey desk located across a small V-shaped space produced by two tall grey walls that meet behind them (designed by Tyler Hill). The performance is very presentational, with Gray and Watts visibly playing office clerks or other extensions of the puppets while they manipulate them.

Tan says that Cicada was inspired in part by works such as Kafka’s tale of bureaucratic injustice in The Trial, as well as Kafka’s human-as-bug story The Metamorphosis, and the sense of...