Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:08:51 -0700
From: "Tim Giugni" <octorilla-AT-gmail.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] striving for the best


>'Don't try to be the best. Just try to be GOOD!'

A relevant quote from the puppetry world, but I'd rather use this one, It
comes straight from the puppet.
"Try not. Do or do not, there is no try."
-- Yoda

> Failure does hurt.

Unless you do it a lot. Then it's kind of a dull ache in your shoulders.

I've been purposefully trying to fail. Just because of who I am. No, not
with the shows that libraries and schools get. Get your ruffled feathers
down. In alternative venues. The strange thing is, people LIKE the Quickie
Shows (TM) I've been doing. I think that it has something to do with tapping
the inner zeitgeist of the contemporary culture in today's urban environment
and it's post rural underpinnings as clearly expressed by Warhol in his
earlier works. Or that I'm brilliant with an audience. Or that I've done
enough improv and the wounds don't show *sniff*.

Nope, it's that I'm brilliant.

> But there is a danger in not trying. Especially when one might miss the
> opportunity to experience that incredible moment when you 'know' that you,
the
> puppet and the audience are one. That you've gotten over yourself and
invested in
> the real purpose of your being there: to attempt to transport your
audience
> through your art, if only for that moment, out of themselves to another
place.

Oooh. Nicely said.

> You know that I've dismissed the old saw of 'the willing suspension of
> disbelief.' I SO believe in the power of the puppet that I'm no longer
convinced
> that anything is or needs to be suspended.
> That in those special moments one does BELIEVE!!!

It's not disbelief. It's investment. Cajoling the audience to want the
outcome you do.

When I was younger I thought that theater is like the Monty Python skit
where a magician puts up a row of houses. The trick the magician states,  to
keeping the houses up is that the people in them have to believe that the
houses will stay up. If they stop believing the houses fall. That burden of
belief can squash the audience and make for displaced anger/resentment in
the performer. I now know that first the magician/performer has to believe
in their own magic.

I also believe that I've just invested in writing two contradictory
paragraphs. Whoo hoo. I'm a human after all.

> I have no idea why it happens so I won't attempt to try to explain it. I
just
> know it happens.   I can't even explain what my fascination with puppetry
is
> all about either. I just know that when I saw my first marionette show by
the
> Roses, that was it. I was hooked.   I have no idea why.

It was his use of Ernie Eyes.

> As I said before, puppetry is unique in all the arts.

Okay, whoa... Why is puppetry unique? We all keep saying, "Puppetry: There
ain't nothin' like it". Why? Is it that we have to build our performers? Is
it that we produce moving sculpture? Is it because we..... they.... it.....
why?

Just asking.

> > I had an acting teacher who once said,
> > "If you are going to succeed, succeed big,
> > If you are going to fail - fail big-- just don't be mediocre."
Another good one.
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