Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2009 10:09:47 -0400
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: [Puptcrit] charleville stories


Hello all,
   Just returned from quite the trip to the Charleville puppet festival. I
brought my own little show - 'The Man who Lived in the Road',
premiered it there at a theatre called L'Repaire and then did several street
shows. The experience was telling and educational - the crowds
were not big, and this may have been due more to less than stellar audio
equipment and street noise making it difficult for a French
audience to understand my pre-recorded French soundtrack. I also saw some
lovely shows;

1) 'Mauvaise Graine' (bad seed?) by Company 'a'. A gritty, dark and
hilarious telling of 'the ugly duckling', with the duckling as tragic social
outcast. There was a tremendously effecting duckling puppet with the most
woeful eyes, and the clown and object theatre as presented
by Dorothee Saysombat were tremendous. She also did a short piece called
'Chamber 26', which told the horrifying story of dogs and the people they
devour, all with postcards.
2) 'Les Arrivants' (the Arriving/the immigrants?) by Spare Parts Puppet
Theatre. A very effecting silent show with marvelous video projections (I'm
usually
against video projections in theatre, but the illustrative quality of the
projections and the exceedingly novel ways the company had their actors and
set interact
the projections won me over), about a young immigrant father arriving in a
strange new land, and seeking out work. Simple story told very well.
3) 'Mine Noire' (black mine) by Creatures Company. My favorite of the 'off'
shows that I saw, with a brilliantly conceived puppet stage and puppet
world.
The puppeteer is a woman in white, literally nailed to the stage, which is a
vast slightly slanted table covered in sand. She acts as a sort of
'overseer'
to little creatures which emerge from their holes, perform various tasks,
and occasionally dream of escape. Another puppeteer dressed in black and
goggles
performs with the creatures in the subterranean catacombs, visible through
rusted grating, and occasionally emerges with to act as the strongman to the
mine's
cruel dictator.

    Of course there were many, many more...I was particularly impressed with
the puppet company (le fil a la Patte) that owned the massive 12-foot high
troll that was performing in the streets and living opposite me in the
campgrounds (http://lefilalapatte.free.fr/geant_fichiers/photos-vulkor.html),
and the Thai puppet company
Joe Louis Theatre who reunited me with my favorite puppet, Hanuman.

To any other puppeteers that were at the festival (including the lovely Mr.
Dudley from whom hanuman so shamefully distracted me) I hope you had as
lovely a time as I.

yrs.

Alexander
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