Puppetry: The Wave of the Future

Concordia had a puppetry outcome, which is basically just a mini-presentation of what students have learned, the first week of December. I am sorry to say that I generally don’t think very much about puppets in my day-to-day existence, but the outcome has changed all that.

There is something so inherently theatrical about puppetry; the fact that you can see the actor operating the puppet serves to remind the audience that this is a hand-made object being handled and brought to life in front of your eyes, which instead of bringing you out of the performance actually pulls you further in because of the sheer showmanship involved. Outcomes by definition have no budget and are rather hastily put together, so the students worked within this DIY framework and ran with it. Improvisation was encouraged and the handling and operating of lighting and music was made into a performance  in itself. Someone slapped down a toy keyboard on stage for an improptu musical sing along (with the audience joining in), another piece featured ringtone clips played from a cell phone, and overheads and transparencies were put to good use. All of this was done in plain sight of the audience and because the space–which was a temporarily converted classroom– didn’t have a clearly delineated stage, it was done nearly in the audience.

All of these factors add up to a very playful sense of performance that isn’t about coming to the theatre on time, taking your seat and avoiding opening up a Mars bar for fear of icy glances being shot at you, but is about being vocal and joining on what you’re seeing. This sort of thing works best when done with a small audience made up mostly of friends, so people are comfortable clapping along and singing as we did.

Anyways, this is something I’m becoming more and more interested in, and I’m working on something right now which I hope accomplishes this level of audience participation.

~ by aconno on December 10, 2008.