Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2009 13:07:30 -0400
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Nightingale in Toronto: Lepage and Curry



On Oct 4, 2009, at 10:53 AM, Elizabeth Luce wrote:

> I remember well Michael Curry talking about using dancers and actors 
> over puppeteers for his productions at the '99 National Festival in
> Seattle, WA. He said it was because most of his work was large scale, 
> and they were trained to have a sense of where they belonged in
> relationship to a large space and to other dancers.
   And a well trained actor, dancer, or gymnast also has body and 
movement awareness, how a body moves in space and how that effects the 
space around them and other in that space, and timing. And they are 
generally used to working out, focusing the energy and emotion out 
through a part of the body (that could then be manipulating a puppet), 
rather than focusing down into a small object as many puppeteers are 
used to doing. Of course a well trained puppeteer can do the same if 
the training includes those aspects of acting and movement and timing.


> It's an exciting choice that the creators use the singers to operate 
> the puppets, if only because it's another step forward for puppets 
> being seen as a viable art form for adults in this country. Puppeteers 
> would have worked too, but this is bold. Hopefully the singers do a 
> good job, a bad one would bother me more, and then I would wish they 
> had used proper puppeteers!
  Which would be worse for the overall production - weak puppetry (by an 
experienced puppeteer's standards) or weak singing/acting? Seems to me 
for these productions (which use puppets but are not puppet shows) the 
sensible choice is to go first with the singing/acting talent that you 
can train at least a limited amount of puppetry to, rather than 
attempting to make a fine singer/actor out of a puppeteer.
   Again, having a singer or dancer or actor become somewhat versed in 
puppetry advances rather than diminishes the field, and giving this 
even limited puppetry a greater exposure does the same. I'm more than 
willing to share my toys/tools, uh, I mean puppetry, both figuratively 
and literally, with the larger world of conventional theater.

Christopher

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