CITIZEN PUPPET - Performer Update - Bart
A lot has changed and progressed since we got our hands on the puppets at the start of the project.
At the end of last week, we got the chance to get a lot closer to puppetry and learning the in's and out's, outside of the world of the play, so that we could find our voice and our characters as puppeteers and in the puppets. The process has been very refreshing, as it is at its core acting whilst being given fifty other balls to juggle. Both an exciting and overwhelming prospect, and getting a few days to really ground ourselves in the world of puppetry has proved unbelievably useful for the rest of the process.
The world of the play is fairy tale in its origin, living in both our world as well as Jack and the Beanstalk. We have come up with several characters, ranging from a school teacher, to an immigrant, to a local at the pub and a cop, or a homeless fan of opera. The wonder of puppetry and of a devising process is that new characters still have the possibility to appear every single day, and with the skills we've all acquired we're all growing more and more confident each day.
In addition to the puppets, we have the world of the puppeteers. We will all be clad in black, masks and all. And the question becomes what do they bring to the story? Who are they? What can they do? What can they bring? How should they behave? In that aspect, we've had a lot of clowning come in which has been barrels of fun, both breaking the fourth wall as well as disappearing behind it and letting the puppets occupy their own space. We also have an abundance of cardboard props, fitting with the fairy tale story that we are trying to construct. Rooms appear in an instant for characters to live in, a moving mouth suddenly flies by, a beanstalk starts growing in the back, or a clock with cock hands starts to drift by... Yes, the phallic nature of the beanstalk has become literal. Fairy tales. Sexual awakening and all.
The verbatim and political aspect of the show is another factor that we're throwing into our juggling act. What can the puppets say? What would the puppets be affected by after the giant has fallen and died? Was a supermarket crushed? Are banks still working? Is the death of the giant murder? Who killed the giant? Is the giant an immigrant? Where is Jack? How did Jack get rich? Is it legal? Where is the money? How does it impact the communities? How do the characters know Jack? What secrets do the characters have? How do we get rid of a giant lying on the motorway?
There have been a million and one questions that have popped up and we've tried answering, and improvising around whilst puppeteering. We have also conducted interviews with people in London, as well as done research into areas of tax, immigration, and banking to name a few, in order to feed our knowledge bank and enrich the tapestry of the world we are creating. How exactly do we address these issues with puppets in a fairy tale world? What would verbatim with puppets be? What is the difference with using puppets?
I feel like I've written out a lot of questions in the last few paragraphs. We have an extremely fertile and exciting ground to work off, and we have produced masses and masses of material. The problem now is bringing it all together and figuring how it all works. Which is where we've encountered several problems. Something works one day, then doesn't seem quite right another, sometimes feeling like we're taking one step forward and then ten steps back.
Today afternoon we were working and trying out different texts we've amassed, but nothing seemed to be coming together. It is in these moments that we enjoy the struggle, and it felt like we had suddenly fallen into a bit of a rut.
However, during a discussion at the end of the day, something started clicking. And we do have a certain direction we're thinking of exploring. Something that pulls ideas from several different things we've already done whilst mixing in something new to see what we can shake up. Not going to go into detail on this, as I feel like I've already splurged a lot onto this page, and also don't want to jinx this too much.
So, without further ado, goodbye.
Bart