I had a swell time in Greenville, South Carolina recently. Librarian Eva Putnam brought Grey Seal in for a performance as part of their Family Fun Series. The library in downtown Greenville is gorgeous and the room where the performance was held was large and spacious. Our production called Tangle of Tales was the perfect show for the occasion. A sell-out crowd provided a wonderful energy for the evening!
As Tangle of Tales begins, an abstract green hand/sculpture puppet begins moving around the stage. As the character began moving at this performance, I heard a small voice in the audience say, " there's somebody doing that." The tone of the voice was not definitive, it wasn't 100% sure about its statement. It was as if the voice was trying to at once convince and reassure itself.
I thought a lot about that statement on the drive home. As puppeteers, isn't that what it really all boils down to? Sure, there IS somebody doing that. But it is our job to create the illusion of life, through movement, if only for a moment. The wonder in the simple statement was a great thing. The fact that this little voice wasn't committed to believing one way or another was the perfect testimony to what puppet theatre is all about.
I love that this all happened during non-verbal movement of the character as well. That little statement was a microcosm of all my puppet philosophy; succinctly uttered in a mere moment. There's somebody doing that. There is somebody doing that whenever a puppet is manipulated. Through the mere movement of a puppet we can non-verbally create a thought-process, a mood and a tempo. We can create conflict and resolution. We can make our audiences feel something, some emotion. They may want to laugh, they may want to cry. All without the need for words. How great it that?
So, indeed, there was somebody doing that. But hopefully, at least for a moment, we can convince ourselves that there wasn't. Suspending reality and creating belief that a little hunk of foam and fabric is alive, only for a moment; that's our job and therefore we should be doing just that.
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