…" The fact that Shakespeare's characters are greater than life in conception offers a form of exaggeration which only puppets can grasp. The poetry flows unfettered, and the imagination of the audiences is given free rein. We can claim, too, that we are in the true puppet tradition, for Samuel Johnson records having witness a puppet Macbeth, and adds that he preferred it to the productions of the human theatre." (Bussell, 1952: 32)
A Midsummer Night's Dream was the thesis project of myself and Emma Schimminger, co-founders of the company that was formed during their third term at the Central School of Speech and Drama. It was also this company's first production. The event occurred in the fourth term of the program on the Advanced Theatre Practice course with the physical manifestation occurring on September 1st and 2nd at 7:00pm at Maple Grove Cemetery in Queens, New York. The production was a cut version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, using the cemetery as a promenade style performance site, integrating puppets, both full bodied and rod puppets, as the fairy characters. The first point of discussion will explore how the concept of the production came into volition, the second point will explore how the audience interacted with the puppets in the production, and the third and final point will unpick and explore puppetry based on site, what worked and what did not.
THE ORIGIN OF PUPPETS or THE PRODUCTION
The origin to this project spawned after an eye opening experience in the second term of this course. The second term was about forming a company and finding a process with which to create work, however, due to personal problems within the group, a lack of shared vision, and an overall disagreement of work style, the production was a failure. The second term the company I was part of worked without a narrative or text in mind making for disorientation without a direction. Tired, confused and completely disillusioned by theatre, I sought to make the process of generating new work and finding my own methodology not such a harrowing experience. (Dapo 2010) By using a text that seemed to fit the site perfectly, we could find discover freedom in our own process because we would have a pre-established "format" to work from.
"I don't think there is a subject that puppetry cant tackle within the realms of good taste, this is the advantage of good puppetry, that they can do things and speak of things that we humans cannot, or you could say its easier to hear such things from a puppet.
One thing that does piss me off is when puppetry is forced into a performance unnecessarily, there is a bit of a puppetry revival going on, don't get me wrong, it's great that people see the form as accessible, there shouldn't be any snobbery with puppetry. But I think some people want to put it in their performances without thinking about why it's there, how it enforces or speaks about the theme. (Wren 2010)
This idea of puppets being forced into a production was exactly what we wanted to avoid. The decision was made not to go puppet crazy and have the entire show done with puppets, but rather to be very specific. Having only the fairies as puppets, and live actors as the lovers and mechanicals, the text found a balance within the context of the cemetery. After all, the cemetery is for the living, not only the dead.
The script was reduced to 80 minutes and still involved all three plot lines: the mechanicals, the fairies, and the lovers. The fairies would be called spirits, and would resemble elements of the cemetery, both physical and metaphysical in nature, but would not necessarily be built with materials from the cemetery. This played nicely into our other concepts as the spirits are the forces of nature that cause the mass amounts of chaos that propels the other characters through their own plots. (Dapo 2010)
Midsummer is the celebration of living, love, lust, and magic. These are the aspects we chose to work with, what is fueling this process and our imagining of the play. The cemetery is place of remembrance, of memories of love for those who have moved on and also a place for the living. It's the physical space where the dead control the living, an element we make use of as the fairies are spirits and manipulate the lovers and the mechanicals in the play. (Dapo, journal) "The puppet is free from human limitations: it can throw itself to the ground in a way which no human actor or dancer could do. It can speak the unspeakable and deal with taboos, deal with our dark sides: it can portray an emotion which cannot be expressed in any other way." (Currell, 1976: 24) The puppets were able to freely move about in the cemetery, to exceed the limitations that might be otherwise set on by using human actors. They could walk across graves, they could have conversations with the dead, and the very presence of the puppet brought out the line between the world of living and the dead. If more time had been given to the rehearsal process (due to extenuating circumstances, we had ten days to physically mount the production) the puppets would have been more involved.
INTERACTING WITH THE LIVING or THE AUDIENCE
The first of September was an invited dress and the second was an invited performance. We could not make it wide open to the public because of the restrictions placed upon us by Maple Grove. We were not allowed to publicize the event, and we were limited in audience size and performance days, as our initial intention was to perform for five days, with a larger audience. However, the restrictions worked beautifully as there were about ten audience members the first night, and twenty two the second night.
Figure 1: A Map of Maple Grove with the Highlighted Path that the Audience Followed
The audience was lead on a promenade performance through the entirety of Maple Grove Cemetery, following the action and also being lead by Puck or Moth. The final scene of the play within the play was done at The Center, an open auditorium room at the exit of Maple Grove audience was never left alone, as an actor or puppeteer was always near or with them. The intention was to create an atmosphere where the audience would be engulfed in the performance, would be swept on a journey that would take them from moment to moment.
" … I had such a wonderful evening in your world. It was a refreshing and thought provoking take on Midsummer. The full use of the space, especially the impeccably timed entrances from across the cemetery, continually made the experience expand beyond individual scenes. Lots of gorgeous moments, notably with Oberon/Titania in the distance. (Their translucence as the night got darker was truly ghostly) " (O'Connell 2010)
We weren't sure how we were going to make them part of the performance, and we began throwing around the idea of masking the audience similar to Punch Drunk, but closer to Black Mountain College's production Danse Macabre:"The audience, including townspeople, were cloaked in dark hoods and capes before entering to dramatize the solitude and anonymity of the individual in the face of death" (Harris, 45) This became counterintuitive to what we were trying to achieve with the audience, by isolation and hooded imagery, we were ourselves dancing to close to obsession/over dramatization of death. The performance was to prove that theatre in the cemetery did not have to dwell or focus on death, or be so blatantly abstract that it didn't relate to the site at all. The cohesion of the audience was dependent upon the puppets to keep them together and to guide them, which seemed to enchant the audience.
"Having characters interact with audience members prior to the actual start of the show was a nice stage setter. Puck was particularly strong as the actor had great physicality and a sense of how to use his body in conjunction with the costume/gargoyle mask---a neat imagery connection to the cemetery.
Walking from scene to scene was exciting because as I got more involved I allowed myself to get closer to the actors which really gave me the feeling of being part of the action. It was as if I was a silent part of the scene and at times not really even silent as the spirit puppets, Puck and other characters actually touched or otherwise involved audience members. I also like the fact that the audience's numbers were limited as it also facilitated that up close and involved feeling." Coyle
There were some problems the audience encountered that were unexpected:
" Big challenges I guess were audio and darkness, although the flashlight spotlights were good for the audience they were probably difficult for the actors. " (Dixon 2010)
The closeness to the roadway meant that road noise was very prominent for the first three scenes of the performance, on the first night, an ice cream trucked parked outside for 30 minutes. Darkness was an element we had to combat and was so prominent the first night that actors missed their cue and we cut off three scenes. The second night we encouraged the audience to bring flashlights or lanterns, so they lit the scenes for themselves. It didn't help the actors, but it defiantly helped the audience combat fear of the dark and safety when the sun began to set. The overall consensus was that the performance was very positive and well constructed.
THE FUTURE and THE CEMETERY PUPPET
"Over the ages, similar aesthetics have shaped puppetry, in disparate cultures whose other forms of expression shared little ground. And around the world, puppets have used similar mechanisms and performed the same astonishing range of social roles.—including slapstick entertainer, political dissident, and emissary to the spirit world. (Blumenthal, 7)
In order to understand where I am going as a practitioner, it is relevant to understand the puppets of Midsummer and the process I went through to create each of them. The puppets were crafted based on the architecture, and the emotional reactions of the actors to the cemetery space as a performance site. There were two types of puppets: Rod puppets and masked/full bodied puppets. Each puppet type had its strengths and weaknesses.
The four fairies were designed to look like angels and figures that are found on headstones. We thought it would be best to simulate stone, instead of using actual stone for the puppets. Although interested in playing with weights, my investigations into using stone proved fruitless:
"I can't manipulate tools well enough to achieve the aesthetic of carved stone. With more time and skill maybe I could have pulled this off, but not where I am now. And it is too heavy to deal with" (Dapo 2010)
In order to make them appear to be stone, I used floral foam and sprayed a stone textured spray paint directly onto the foam. What this did was give texture, but also caused corrosion of the foam, so that it had pits and divots, like a weather-worn stone angel would have. "The puppet spirits… were awesome, beautifully designed and wonderfully executed by the actors using them. Their color and textures seemed to reflect the stone and statuary found in cemeteries."( Coyle, 2010). They were beautiful but could not withstand outdoor use. The rods broke and the delicate details kept snapping off due to transport.
"As well as being influenced by site I think puppets are always influenced by what you need them to do, their character, the style of the play as a whole and how many manipulators you have... My stylistic preference is to try and use materials which look like they could have come from the world they inhabit- so for a graveyard, natural materials which could look like bark or grass or stone. But again it depends what effect you are trying to create- ethereal ghosts etc would suit other materials." (Bird, 2010)
If I had had regular access to the site of which they were going to be performed, I would have loved to have made them a greater part of the living environment, but crafting the puppets to match the specific site. I wanted the puppets to be more active when they weren't directly involved, I.e a sort of docking station for them, a fabricated headstone that they would fit into in between lovers and mechanical scenes or even attachments so that they could be part of larger stone monuments. Two of them should have been table top puppets so they could have stood on their own and been seen at a distance, leaning against a headstone, or standing next to a mausoleum. Size was also an issue, as I would have preferred them to be at least three or four foot tall with ivy and moss entwined through them.
Their faces turned out beautifully and I would not have changed how they came to be. We asked our cast in New York to visit the cemetery and write their initial reactions and chose to carve the faces of the puppets based on the reactions they posted and came out with four extremely expressive faces with a myriad of emotions. (Dapo, journal)
"Puppets must be exaggerated, fantastic, mask-like creatures with a life of their own" (Bussell, 24) Titania, Oberon, Puck and Bottom were all mask based. The masks were lightweight and made out of plaster cast and foam, but were difficult to manipulate, as they could off balance easily. Designs were based on Count Johannes, one of the cemetery residents, and Dame Judy Dench as homage to both.
Figure 4: Titania. Plaster and fabric
Figure 5: Oberon and Demetrius
Designed to reflect death and life respectively, I was disappointed with how fragile and small they seemed to come across. "I found the "head" masks of Oberon and Titania to be less effective because they seemed to limit the movement of the actors too much making them come across as stiff—more so with Oberon than Titania." Coyle, 2010
The biggest challenge was Puck. He began as a four foot tall table top puppet. He could stand independently and was manipulated by two actors. His feet were heavy enough so that if his hips were in motion, he virtually walked by himself. Sadly, the puppet broke in transit between Colorado and New York and was unfixable in a week. All of my design, relating him to Native American mythology was lost. Needing a quick solution, I designed a quick mask based on gargoyles, which are found on and near churches around the world. I think that the process of design for Puck was too rushed in the end, and I wasn't content with the choice one hundred percent, because it was not a direct reaction to Maple Grove.
IN THE END…
I needed this production to be a success for a multitude of reasons. I needed validation as a theatre practitioner and artist, I needed to share what my imagination had dreamt up, and toward the end I needed a year long struggle to find a working partner and method to end. Emma and I set out to accomplish everything we had envisioned with Midsummer and are looking forward to expanding our company to include more individuals in a production capacity.
What is the next step? Emma and I have hopes to bring the production back to London, and my personal ambition with the puppets is to let them be created by the site by making use of the materials I gather at the site. Randy Ginsburg's project of Puppets in Beirut is a great inspiration to me, as I love how he used what was found at the different performance areas as parts of the puppet. I think I can allow myself to be more abstract in my concepts in future designs.
I set out on the venture knowing that it was highly ambitious and risky. The lack of rehearsal time, losing our original venue two weeks before the performance, and working on a project from a different country was strenuous. I feel strongly about the puppets I crafted and truly feel they are an expression of what I was personally going through as well as what the site warranted. I created puppets that were a gateway from the world of the living, into the world of the dead, and proved that the cemetery is a performance space that can be extremely effective when treated with the proper care and respect. Carl Ballanes summed it up beautifully:
".…as cemetery historian, it seems I have more friends who are dead than alive and some of them have been gone over a hundred years. Have to admit after working there for about twenty years I have never had a spiritual encounter or have seen any type of apparition but I had this incredible feeling that you did not have an audience of 25 or so but an audience of 80,000 who are cared for at Maple Grove. They in their way embraced you and your work and there was a wonderful spell cast over the evening and I could feel the appreciation of thousands who were remembered and entertained last night. "
