theatre

Gondwana

Posted by hil

Due to popular demand the National Museum of Australia has scheduled some extra performances of Gondwana by the Sydney company erth Visual and Physical Inc. You’ll have to be quick to book, as the last performances are this coming weekend.

Gondwana

The puppets are fantastic, as you might expect from erth, and with Bryony Anderson on the making team (I don’t know who else was on the team) . Some are wonderfully satisfyingly HUGE. Others have delightful characteristics, such as the Leptictidium’s twitchy nose. With one exception – the crocodile-y animal – the creatures moved beautifully. I loved the fine movements of the Meganeura, a gigantic primative dragonfly, and the Ammonites. One of the smaller dinosaurs shared a similar and effective design to some of the puppets in ‘The Lion King’, such as the warthog: the puppeteer visible in the middle, with the neck and head built out the front, and tail out the back. The baby Dryosaurs were just plain cute. And the inflatable lanscape and original soundscape were cool, too.

At the performance I saw the accoustics were dreadful. It was hard to hear any of the narration.

Its an interesting task to seek to satisfy both traditional theatre audiences as well as museum audiences. For the theatre goer, there was drama in seeing the creatures brought to life so well, but little story development aside from evolution. For museum audiences, which I assume are those whose interests are mainly historical and scientific – and there has been great attention paid to scientific accuracy in developing the show – there might be some unease about the artistic licence that allows the Liptictidium, a relative late-comer and ‘visitor from the Northern Hemisphere’, to appear through each era as a link throughout the performance.

The program leaflet gave lots of scientific detail. It would have been good if it had also credited the directors, performers, makers and production team, and given us some detail about the puppets.

Gondwana is the first of three shows which will be developed over the next three years. The second will cover time after the dinosaurs, and the third the present time and future of Australia. I’m looking forward to the next installment.

Update: Here are a few links:
Dinosaurs given new life
Interview with Phil Downing, Musical Director of Erth

Update 2015: broken links. Some photos of the puppets are at Erth > gallery > museums > scroll down. They are inaccessible for linking.

Hidden Corners Theatre: See Beneath

Posted by hil

The bunraku-style puppets I was working on are for production called ‘See Beneath’, being presented by Hidden Corners Theatre, Canberra’s award-winning theatre company of young carers. This is how the puppets turned out:

Sea Captain

 

‘See Beneath’ is a play by and about young people dealing with disability in their families, directed by Robin Davidson and barb barnett, with the assistance of Max Barker. Its written by Rebecca Meston and the cast of Hidden Corners, and plays in Melbourne and Canberra during July. Here are season details:Melbourne: Theatreworks, 14 Acland St, St. Kilda.

13 – 16 July, Wed – Sat @ 7.30pm; Sat matinee @ 2pmCanberra: The Street Theatre Studio, Childers St, Civic
21 – 23 July, Thurs – Sat @ 7.30pm; Sat matinee @ 2pm

Tickets are $8 concession, $14 full.

Spare Parts Puppet Theatre: The Velveteen Rabbit

Posted by hil

Spare Parts Puppet Theatre in Perth, WA, is presenting ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ in June and July.

‘An enchanting story where anything is possible if you invest it with enough belief and love. Based on the classic children’s story by Marjory Williams, (and adapted by Greg Lissaman) the velveteen rabbit is the much cherished toy of a young boy. To his family it was merely a plush toy, in amongst many, but the boy (and the rabbit) knew he was real. Was it just imagination or can the bond of love make something real?’

Dates and times are available here.

I caught an interview about the production with Philip Mitchell, the Artistic Director of Spare Parts, on the ABC program Life Matters last week. You can still listen to it by following the audio link for June 7th here. (links no longer available)

Royal de Luxe: The elephant and the small giantess

Posted by hil

Update: I’ve posted a lot about Royal de Luxe and it’s influence since this post. Click here to go to search links to all those posts.

Update 2015 – removed and struck out some broken links

——————————–

I’m blown away by the French street theatre company Royal de Luxe’s amazing street parade, ‘The Visit of the Sultan of India Atop His Time-Travelling Elephant’, which took place in Nantes last week, in honour of the centenary of Jules Verne’s death. A rocket landed just outside the cathedral in place Saint Pierre, and from it a young giantess emerged. Together with the Sultan’s huge 11 metre tall elephant with a house built into its back, she explored the streets of Nantes, taking time to eat an icecream, ride a scooter, take a shower and nap, be lifted up onto the elephant’s trunk, and eventually to return to take off in her rocket again.

Deluxe

I’ve been collecting links! If you are short on time go to the ones with asterisks. (edited Oct 2014 to remove defunct del-icio.us link).

2007:

2006:

The Sultan’s Elephant in Antwerp (added 8 July 2006)

The Sultan’s Elephant in London (added 21 Apr 2006)

2005:

Nantes official site (in French):

Other photo galleries:

At Flickr:

Blog entries:

  • dirty beloved: great links about the company; thanks Ajax! I’ve included most but not all of them here
  • jzw:1, 2 (include accounts by Ian Flanigan)*

Amiens:

About Royal de Luxe:About Royal de Luxe (French sites):

  • VTi: A Short Introduction
  • Royal de Luxe – not an official site, but pretty comprehensive – history, links to photos and reviews (thanks for the image above)* (updated link 2 June 2006)
  • Royal de Luxe
  • French Wikipedia entry
  • 1995-2002 – Karen Maldonado
  • Interview with Jean-Luc Courcoult, director (in Spanish)
  • Interview with Jean-Luc Courcoult, dirctor (pdf in English)
  • BBC Royal de Luxe photo gallery, from older productions (added 6 May 2006)

Royal de luxe at Wikipedia (added July 2007)

Machines of Spectacle

  • Machines of Spectacle exhibition

‘Hunters of the Giraffes’ photo galleries:

‘The Giant’

Catamini Attraction

Poster

  • Royal de Luxe poster for sale (image on the right)

Tour dates:

2005:

  • Nantes (France) – 22, 23, 24, 25 May. Debut.
  • Amiens (France) – 16, 17, 18, 19 June
  • La Havre – mid July (didn’t happen as far as I know)
  • London (UK) – 8, 9, 10, 11 September. (I think this did not happen because of the London bombings)

2006: (only London confirmed as far as I know)

  • London (UK) – 5, 6, 7, 8 May. See here for official website coverage.
  • Antwerp (Belgium) – 6, 7, 8, 9 July
  • Calais (France) – 28, 29, 30 Sept & 1 Oct
  • La Havre (France) – 26, 27, 28, 29 Oct
  • Paris, Bilbao, Marseilles, Valance possible

Snuff Puppets: Nyet Nyet’s Picnic

Posted by hil

I wish I could be in Melbourne this weekend for Snuff Puppets‘ latest production, Nyet Nyet’s Picnic, which starts on Friday at Birrarung Marr on the banks of the Yarra.

In a collaboration between indigenous and non-indigenous artists, Nyet Nyet’s Picnic is a contemporary work that revives ancient stories from the dreamtime, and uses giant puppets, dance, and music in an exploration of local monsters, bunyips and spirit creatures. Described as a ‘genuinely scary, culturally enlightening and engaging night of theatre’, the performance is the cultural highlight of Reconciliation Week and is free to the public.

The photo above was taken by Ponch Hawkes, and there are three others here:
The Nyet Nyet Women
One of the Nyet Nyet Woman
The Nyet Nyet Men

Puppetry Daemons in ‘His Dark Materials’

Posted by hil

By all accounts the two-part 6 hour stage adaptation of Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials is absolutely stunning. I think it has had two seasons at the National Theatre in London: one in 2003, and a second that finished earlier this month.

The daemons, physical manifestations of the human soul in the shape of animals that reflect a person’s character, are puppets. They were designed by Michael Curry, who is perhaps best known for the puppets in The Lion King. Stagework has an extensive website on the adaptation, and its possible to see a few of the initial designs there, and glimpses of the puppetry in some of the video clips:

Operating the golden monkey
Lyra meets Mrs Coulter
Cittagazee performance
Captured by bears
Lyra and Iorek (scene in rehearsal)

In both these and the puppets in ‘The Lion King’, I think the magic lies in how the overall shape and actions of the creatures are suggested. Often the puppeteers are built into the shape in unexpected ways, and they use their whole bodies to make the animal move. In ‘The Lion King’, for instance, the puppeteers playing the hyenas held the hyena heads low down and at arms length, while their own heads provided the high shoulder line that is so distinctive in a hyena’s overall shape. Likewise, the polar bears in ‘His Dark Materials’, are defined by a puppeteer holding a head mask in one hand and a great clawed paw in the other, with just the suggestion of great shoulders in what looks like a flexible curved line between the two, and a powerful lumbering gait.

Bridge to the stars, which looks as if its the natural online home for ‘His Dark Materials’ fans, has a section on the stage adaptation, including a guide to the Stagework site, images and reviews.

Terrapin Theatre Company: The Garden of Paradise

Posted by hil

The Ten Days on the Island Festival in Tasmania, which started on April 1st, is drawing to a close. Terrapin Theatre Company, which is one of Australia’s oldest puppetry companies, presented a stage adaptation of The Garden of Paradise, a little known tale by Hans Christian Andersen. It was commissioned by the festival to mark the bicentennial of the
birth of Hans Christian Andersen, and included dancers from TasDance, choreographed by Graeme Murphy.

The bicentennial is being celebrated all over the world this year, and Terrapin has been invited to take their production to Denmark in August.

In January there was a preview in The Age, and a few days ago The Australian has a short review within a general article on the festival. Gentle Curiosity has a more personal and detailed response.

Muckheap

Posted by hil

‘Muckheap’ by Melbourne’s Polyglot Puppet Theatre was another favourite of mine at One Van in January. Described as ‘a galloping tale of two people who try to clean out their shed for hard rubbish day but find everything too interesting or full of memories to throw out’, it also weaves in a different version of Jack(y) and the Beanstalk, ideas about recycling, play, and memory, and an inventive mix of puppetry and scale. The puppets were designed by Paul Newcombe, and adapted and made by Graeme Davis. Here is one of them:

Muck2

The relationship between the two main characters was pleasing in the way it ranged from tension and teasing to fun and fondness. I also liked the way it showed imaginative play and puppets as being able to be made out of anything. (The only thing that the actors deemed unable to be worth keeping at the particular performance I saw was a John Howard poster). Its good news that ‘Muckheap’ will be coming to Canberra in May as a Jigsaw Theatre Company ACT Schools Tour, and later in the year it travels to Queensland.

Jonathon Oxlade

Posted by hil

For me Jonathon Oxlade was the stand-out performance of the One Van puppetry festival in late January. His short performance during the Saturday night cabaret was exciting, bizarre, gross, and hilarious. Jonathon works as a freelance theatre designer, illustrator and puppeteer.

According to his bio, among many other things, he created The Red Tree installation — ‘an interactive experience full of little surprises for the eyes, ears,heart and mind’ — that accompanied the QPAC’s Out of the Box production of ShaunTan’s beautiful picture book ‘The Red Tree’ in 2004.

Redtree

This year he is designing ‘Creche and Burn’ (on stage in April) and ‘The Dance of Jeramiah’ (in Oct-Nov) for LaBoite Theatre, and a production of the Dicken’s classic ‘A Christmas Carol’ for the Queensland Theatre Company late in the year. He is currently working on a picture book, too.