69°S
Zaza Fahmeeda Mohd Zainee
On the April 6th, I went to watch 69°S (The Shackleton Project) that’s created by Phantom Limb. The only knowledge that I had known before going to the show was of that it involved marionettes. Just before the show started, I had the chance to glance through the program notes and got a rough idea what the show is going about – Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance expedition to the Antarctic.
The show started with a few dancers in red entering the stage. The dance was fluid but strong as the dancers moved friskily but seemed so calm and collected at the same time. Then, a skeleton figure entered and slowly walked towards a rope that was hanging on the left side of the stage. When he reached the rope, he looked like he was pulling the rope downwards without touching it. After that, as the dancers exited, the stage was set up with what I think were three icebergs and a ship (Endurance). Before I move on, I’d like to mention something different about the costume of the dancers earlier that I’m sure everyone noticed, which was that it covered half of the dancers faces, giving an impression of a mystery, something unknown, or probably suggesting furtiveness. Because of this, I imagined the dancers in red as the deep unexplored sea and the skeleton figure was like a guardian of the sea. At first I was confused as to what’s the significance of the skeleton, and Aina suggested that it was probably a symbol of the guardian or protector of the sea. And this was not hard to take in as this belief is not unheard of. So what I’m saying is that, I imagined that the mystifying journey of Shackleton was unraveled by the ‘guardian of the sea.’
Moving on, after the stage was set up the way that I have explained, tall, white figures paired with, comparatively, miniatures walked slowly into the stage. At first I was not sure what it was until I’s gotten a clearer picture as the moved to the front of the stage – the miniatures were marionettes and the tall, white figures were their manipulators. For the next 45 minutes or so, the story of Shackleton was told by these marionettes. I realized that it was a very, very good thing that I had at least glanced through the timeline of Shackleton’s journey because some of what the marionettes did wouldn’t make sense if I didn’t. For instance, when the pictures of marching armies and tanks were projected on the stage, it was indicating that the war in Europe happened during their expedition. Other than that, when the manipulators made the marionettes walked/marched in a straight line, it was actually talking about how the stranded men engaged in a seven-month march to reach the open sea. Finally, after rowing and got to an island, Shackleton decided to search for rescue with a few selected crews and began to make an 800-mile voyage. In the end, the remaining men were all rescued.
After the manipulators with their marionettes leave the stage, the dancers in red came into stage again but no longer with their faces covered, and not long after that the show ended with the skeleton figure doing what I think somewhat a ‘happy’ dance. I think this kind of gives the impression that the sea is not all that furtive after all, it is up to us to understand it and as for the dancing skeleton, I’m thinking that the ‘guardian of the sea’ is just happy that the men were safe.
On a side note, I would like to bring up about the actual use of marionettes in the show. As each movement of the marionettes had to be done manually by the manipulators, the show seemed slow and tedious. At first, I wondered why couldn’t they just use human beings instead because the movements would have been much easier. However, on a second thought, this expedition is a big part of history, the men portrayed in this show were real men who went through unimaginable difficulties to explore the unknown. Just another person couldn’t possibly give justice in representing such great – as cliché as it might sound – heroes. So in my perspective, I actually think that the concept of marionettes is in place and it is what makes the show unique in its own way.
In the creators’ note of the program book, it is mentioned that Jessica, whom I believe is the set designer of the show, I quote, awoke from a dream with a desire to contextualize the story of Shackleton and to discover more deeply why it is important to remember his story. Honestly, after watching the show, I had done my own research on Wikipedia to find out more about Shackleton and his exploration. Therefore, I think in that sense Phantom Limb has achieved their objective. On top of that, I also wanted to know how Shackleton looked like, so I decided to share a few photos.
I’ve always thought that the marionette shows depicted on TV are creepy but having watched a live marionette show for the first time, I’d say that it’s not bad at all, in fact it was kind of fascinating.
Oh, and I think icebergs are fascinating too so here's a picture as well.