theatre

A puppet production of ‘The Mousehole Cat’

Posted by hil

By chance I discovered that the British puppetry company Puppetcraft have done a puppet show of The Mousehole Cat, one of the books by Nicola Bayley that I mentioned in my previous post. These are their carved wooden puppets of the legendary Tom Bawcock and his cat,

Mousehole

who ‘saved the villagers of Mousehole from starvation by putting to sea in a fearsome gale on the day before Christmas eve and catching seven sorts of fish, enough for everyone to make and enjoy a life-saving, local delicacy – starry gazey pie’. The pictures and reviews on their site, make it look like a great production, and they have a recipe for starry gazey pie, too. Apparently Tom Bawcock’s Eve is still celebrated in Mousehole on December 23rd each year.

Don’t miss Jigsaw’s ‘The Lost Thing’ at the Sydney Festival…

Posted by hil

If you are in Sydney, don’t miss Jigsaw Theatre Company’s production of ‘The Lost Thing’ this week. Its part of the Sydney Festival, and is playing at the Parramatta Riverside Theatre, from Jan 18 – 22. Its great news that the play will also be being presented by the Canberra Theatre Centre in March.

In December at the the annual Canberra Critics Circle Awards, Jigsaw’s artistic director, Greg Lissaman, won the The Canberra Times Artist of the Year award, and the company also picked up a theatre award for ‘the excellence, impact and theatrical creativity of Arborio‘. ‘Arborio’ is going up to the Sydney Opera House later in 2005. All cool news!

More ‘Lost Thing’ puppet pictures

Posted by hil

Here are some more photos of the puppet build for Jigsaw Theatre Company’s production of ‘The lost thing’. The making crew were Imogen Keen and Hilary Talbot, with help from Catherine Prosser and Marie-Martine Ferrari, and designs by Richard Jeziorny based on Shaun Tan’s book ‘The Lost Thing’.

The cat :: carved out of foam, and made to sit on a beanie that one of the puppeteers wears
The janitor :: about 70cm tall
The small version of the lost thing :: about 70cm tall
The booth lady
The parents :: about 80cm tall on their sofa
The seagulls
The tram :: about 40cm long. It has interchangeable cut-outs of the people inside
The tram :: top detail
The boys :: Pete and Shaun are 35cm tall, and the little version Shaun is 25cm
Shaping the utopia lost things out of polystyrene, and painting them in the sunshine :: Imogen Keen, Catherine Prosser & Hilary Talbot
The utopia lost things carved but not finished :: they range in size from about 40cm across (the rower) to 150cm tall (the eye)
The utopia lost things

The Lost Thing plays at the National Gallery of Australia this coming week, 6-9th Oct.

Making the puppets for ‘The Lost Thing’

Posted by hil

As promised below, here are some pictures of the build of Jigsaw Theatre Company’s production of The Lost Thing. Imogen Keen and I have been making the puppets for the production.

The aluminium structure of the Lost Thing itself was made by Brian Sudding, who also constructed the set. We then covered and detailed it, adding tentacles, claws, and eye mechanisms. The designer, Richard Jeziorny, added further painted detail. The whole framework is made to be suspended on another frame, so that the Lost Thing is about 3 metres tall.

Imogen Keen covering the basic shape of the Lost Thing with foam.
Marie-Martine Ferrari (co-founder of the original Skylark Puppet and Mask Theatre) and I covering the foam shell with muslin.
From above, showing some of the aluminium framework inside.
After the first coat of paint.
The boy’s parents on their sofa under construction.
The mysterious janitor, in an early stage of being made.

The photographs were taken by Tim Raupach. I should have some more in a few days time.

The Lost Thing: Jigsaw Theatre Company

Posted by hil

Things have been pretty busy around here as the build for Jigsaw Theatre Company’s upcoming production of ‘The Lost Thing’ nears completion. Based on the book by Shaun Tan, ‘The Lost Thing’ is premiering at the National Gallery of Australia, as the main event of their Children’s Festival. Performances will be in the Small Theatre from 6-9 October 2004, and hopefully will tour to other galleries in time.

I’ll post some pictures of the build soon, but in the meantime, check out Finding: The Lost Thing, an article by Gillian Freeman in the current issue of Artlook. Its an interview with the director, Greg Lissaman, and Shaun Tan, (who is also the visual consultant for the show), and who was recently in Canberra working on the painting of the set with the designer, Richard Jeziorny.

‘The Space Between’ by Peter J. Wilson and Geoffrey Milne

Posted by hil

I’m looking forward to reading Peter Wilson and Geoffrey Milne’s book ‘The Space Between, The Art of Puppetry and Visual Theatre in Australia’. The book has just been published by Currency Press, and was launched last Tuesday at the Arts Centre in Melbourne.

‘A history of puppetry and image related theatre in Australia, written from extensive research but which also offers a personal view from one of Australia’s most experienced and imaginative puppeteers, Peter J Wilson. The book includes practical information on how puppeteers go about their work and documents a host of innovative companies and individuals who helped shape puppetry in Australia in its broadest sense; and looks at how puppetry has influenced, and been a part of, major theatre company’s programming.’

In 2002, when Peter held an Arts Centre Senior Creative Fellowship at the Victorian College of the Arts, he also brought together the celebration that was the first National Puppetry Summit , and he has gone on to develop the first Australian tertiary course in the art of puppetry at the VCA.

Geoffrey Milne is head of Theatre and Drama at La Trobe University, Melbourne. He has worked in theatre since 1967 in many capacities, especially as a lighting designer, and since the mid 1980s as a theatre reviewer for print and radio.

‘The Space Between’ is available from all good bookshops, and retails for $49.95. I’ll have to check when I get my copy, but I think the cover photograph was taken by Jeff Busby, and the featured puppets were made by Rob Matson.

Compagnie Philippe Genty’s ‘Vanishing Point’ currently touring Australia

Posted by hil

‘Vanishing Point’ had its Australian premiere in at the Canberra Theatre Centre last week. It is the latest production by Compagnie Philippe Genty to tour Australia, following Stowaways in 1996 and Dedale in 2000.

There were some wonderful scenes, of which I had two favourites. One was a conversation between a man and a dog whose mimed gesticulations extended into visual question marks, arrows, punctuation, aggressive lines and sharp angles that attacked, choked and tickled. It reminded me of Victor Borge’s aural Phonetic Punctuation skit, and also of the great ‘piece of rope’ puppet in Company Skylark’s production of Wake Baby some years ago. My other favourite scene involved a puppet that I particularly liked: a grotesque and huge inflated ogre who several times proceeded to swipe and eat the head of one of the men. In an article by Irma Gold in the current issue of Artlook,

“Genty explains that working through these ideas in Vanishing Point was cathartic. ‘I found that this huge, monstrous thing I had inside myself was actually deflating. Indeed, this is actually what happens on stage. At the end you have a huge monster almost four metres high, which is an aspect of the subconscious of the main character, and finally it deflates in the longest fart in theatre history!'”

I thought the manipulation of a bird puppet that was also eating a person was really good, as were the two scenes where people were floating and diving high in the air, and the tiny shadow puppet crowd at the very end. I also enjoyed the aesthetic quality of the music, lighting and illusions.

There were two themes along the lines of ‘maybe what you are seeing is a little bit of yourself ‘ and ‘the murderer is also the victim and vice versa’, but I didn’t follow any particular development of them beyond that. I understand that part of the idea of the play was to present surreal sequences of interior landscapes that, like dreams or inner conflict, are puzzling. The audience interacts by trying to figure it all out and interpret it like the images in a dream, rather than being given a rational path to follow. Hopefully they find different perspectives on their own inner experiences through recognizing some of the images. I have mixed feelings about the success of that. I think one probably needs to see the show more than once to really explore the images and the connections between them, and few of us get that opportunity.

Here are the dates for the Australian Tour of Vanishing Point:

Canberra: July 6-10, Canberra Theatre
Sydney: July 14 – 31, Sydney Theatre at Walsh Bay
Adelaide: August 4 – 7, Her Majesty’s Theatre
Melbourne: August 11- 21, Comedy Theatre

A review:
Vanishing Point, Compagnie Philippe Genty, by Jill Sykes, Sydney Morning Herald

Some pictures (by JoJo):
Canberra Theatre Vanishing Point Photo Gallery

The picture accompanying this post is from the collection above.

‘The Lost Thing’ : Jigsaw Theatre Company Call for Actor/Puppeteers

Posted by hil

Jigsaw Theatre Company, a Canberra-based, professional theatre company for young audiences established in 1974, is calling for 2 male actor puppeteers for their upcoming production of ‘The Lost Thing’. Based on the book by Shaun Tan, ‘The Lost Thing’ is premiering at the National Gallery of Australia, and is being developed with festival touring in mind.

Contact : Greg Lissaman (Artistic Director)
Tel: 02 62939900
Email: jigsawartistic@ozemail.com.au
Dates : Rehearsals: 6 Sept – 2 Oct 2004; Season: 5-9 Oct 2004
City : Canberra
Salary : $720/week + superannuation and holiday loading
Auditions : By arrangement with the Artistic Director
To express interest in these roles, please email headshots and bios to jigsawartistic@ozemail.com.au.

Liquid rubber and other moulding and casting resources

Posted by hil

I’ve come across some interesting sites to do with making in the last few days.

Smooth-On: These people produce liquid rubbers and plastics for artists and industry: silicone rubbers, urethane rubbers, liquid plastics, foams and so on. They offer detailed product and technical information, and their How to step-by-step turorials on various ways of moulding and casting look great.

Rowe Trading Company: The Australian distributers for Smooth-On, based in Adelaide. I notice that Rowe are also distributers for Bondmaster adhesives. Most of us who make foam puppets are used to using Gel Grip, or a similar type of contact glue to join foam pieces. Its smelly, you have to take care with the fumes, and it takes a few minutes to go tacky before you can press the two surfaces together. Bondmaster produces a much friendlier two-part glue which consists of a pinkish dab-on liquid, and a spray-on catalyst. It bonds foam immediately, has no smell to speak of, and is easier to get into deep places, and onto fabric. In a few circumstances though, say when seams are under pressure, I still opt to use Gel Grip. And the last I heard, Bondmaster is hard to buy except in industrial quantities.

Barnes Products: I’ve heard good things about this Sydney moulding and casting supplier. Their catalogue is online, and they have a range of videos and books on moulding and casting.

Activa products: Activa make an interesting air-dry casting compound called LI-QUA-CHÉ, which is a recycled paper fibre polymer based compound. Its looks like clay slip, and dries to a hard durable glossy satin finish.