SCENE EAST, by Steve Abrams Fall 2009 Puppetry Journal
Three New York puppeteers who are rarely seen around the country all presented works this fall. Hanne Tierney’s newest creation, “My life in A Nutshell” marks significant changes for a fascinating artist. Hanne’ s theatre usually features highly abstract puppetry to present works by Gertrude Stein and Chekhov. She has earned an Obie, 5 UNIMA Citations and the PofA Jim Henson Award for Innovation. HERE Arts Center Puppetry Program presented her first work using figurative and representational puppetry and a text that is somewhat autobiographical.
Her work, always refined, intellectual, and precise has greater richness and spirit. In Hanne’s unique signature style the marionettes fill the performance space and are rigged with counter-weights and strings (80 of them!) all converging to a master control panel at the side of the room. Hanne and assistants are visible as they operate the marionettes standing at the “vertical keyboard.” Every element: the music, lighting, puppets, text and narration all are crafted with elegance.
Hanne Tierney narrates the text without “acting” the characters. Her matter-of-fact German accented storytelling lets romantic entanglements, wry observations, and encounters with death, flow naturally as a part of life. Hanne’s dream-like meditation seems to say in a nutshell that she has been through a lot and here she is surviving and making beautiful theatre from the experience.
The Cosmic Bicycle Theatre, directed by Jonathan Edward Cross (AKA Jonny ClockWorks) celebrates its 20th year. “Edward Lear's Absurd-Ditties” is a Puppet-Operetta, featuring Lear's Fantastical Poems with an original score for accordion, strings and percussion all set within and around a Large Victorian Toy Theatre.
“The Traveling Players Present the Women of Troy” by Theodora Skipitares is part of series of three shows presented in the fall of 2009 at La MaMa.
The Aphids company of Melbourne Australia performed 3 miniature puppet plays for adults “A Quarreling Pair” by Jane Bowles, “Mr Peterson’s Milk” by Lally Katz and “And When They Were Good” by Cynthia Troup, The Czech-American Marionettes, directed by Vit Horjes performed Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.”
Theodora Skipitares is an artist who always makes me think, and reconsider many ideas. She delves into history and tries to make connections in new and surprising ways. She experiments, which is always a good thing but as we all know, experiments are not always successful. Theodora began working with puppets over 25 years ago. Her association with La MaMa began in 1992. She was traveled to Asia with La MaMa founder, Ellen Stewart, and Theodora has presented 14 works at La MaMa. She has earned Fulbright, Rockefeller and Guggenheim fellowships, numerous design awards, a Unima citation of excellence and numerous Henson Foundation grants. I admire her exploration of non-Western theatre forms, and ancient Greek theatre.
Her most recent work at La MaMa continues her re-imagining of ancient Greek theatre. A circus ringmaster announces “The Traveling Players” will present excerpts from The Trojan Women by Euripides. On stage are four 13-foot representations of real-life activist women (3 from Africa, and one from Afghanistan). The stories of these heroic and oppressed women are intended to connect with 4 women of Greek mythology. The gigantic heads have moving mouths from which we hear narration of their stories. Below the heads are ample skirt-like tents. Emerging from the tents are actors with life size puppets to represent the mythic men and women of Troy. Perhaps the circus setting with a ringmaster is intended to make the work more accessible. In my opinion it is an unneeded extra layer.
Over two thousand year ago Euripides wrote of the tragic consequences of war, and the struggles of proud women, themes that continue to have great power and relevance today. Skipitares makes an intellectual connection between the ancient world and our own, but the script and the performances do not deliver an emotional catharsis. For several of the actors, the puppets were more an encumbrance than an expressive tool. Perhaps masks would have been more effective than puppets.
It is understandable that puppeteers tend to focus on the puppetry in a theatre work, but judging an entire production on the merits of the puppetry (or the scenery, lighting, make-up) misses the big picture. The Skiptarares production provided a welcome opportunity to revisit iconic Greek heroines, Hecuba, Cassandra, and Helen of Troy even if their full dramatic power was not realized in puppetry form.
Oct 21 the Quanzhou Marionettes of China performed at Carnegie Hall
December NY
Dec 3-6, 2009 and Dec 10-13, 2009 The Voices 4 Vision festival reappears at Theatre for the New City. Curators Sarah Provost and Jane Catherine Shaw present 4 artists, all recipients of Henson Foundation Grants: Billy Burns “Hobo No-no” Luis Tentindo “The Mud Angels” Patti Bradshaw “The Next to Last Poem” and Jane Catherine Shaw “Folk Tales of Asia and Africa” (seen at the 1995 PofA national festival in Bryn Mawr).
Voices 4 Vision includes a film screening, an exhibit and finishes with a puppetry slam.
Fall in Philadelphia was rich with 2 plays by significant authors, each using puppetry and each beautifully acted and directed. “The Long Christmas Ride Home" by Paula Vogel, directed by Aaron Cromie, puppets by Aaron Cromie, Azuka Theatre at the Mandell Theatre of Drexel University Oct 29-Nov 15, With searing humor, and heartbreak Paul Vogel puts us into the car of an unhappy family driving home from a Christmas visit to the grandparents. The wife and unfaithful husband are actors in the front seat. The three children in the back seat are “bunraku” style puppets (2 operators each, one hooded, one masked). The son, Stephen, is a fictionalized version of the playwright’s late brother, who had a love of all things Japanese. The cast included 6 professional actors in the speaking roles and an ensemble of 8 performers (mostly Drexel undergraduates) working the puppets in a totally successful collaboration.
“The Good Puppet of Szechwan” Walking Fish Theatre Nov.4-22. I had the pleasure of seeing a rarely performed play by Brecht usually called "The Good Woman of Szechwan" or "The Good Person of Szechwan" but this time called the "The Good Puppet of Szechwan" In a 42-seat store front theatre in a Philadelphia neighborhood. The play includes 5 or 6 songs that are Brecht’s words and poems set to original music (accordion, harp and recorder). Stan Heleva directed 5 actors playing 20 roles with puppets and masks. The broad strokes of Brecht’s parable seemed well suited to puppetry. The director and actors had a lightness of touch and pacing blending the humor and irony with the more serious underlying themes.