Shadow Circus at Wheelock Family Theatre

This summer I had a week-long gig co-teaching a puppetry class at Wheelock Family Theatre. It was my first time teaching puppetry. For two hours and forty-five minutes a day over the course of five days, my co-teacher, two assistants, and I, met with a group of roughly two-dozen nine-to-eleven year olds. Our objective was to teach them both puppet making and puppet performance. For me one imperative was that the kids came away introduced to at least three styles of puppetry and the associated techniques-- the other was that they created the work themselves.

On day one, we introduced them to the construction of rod puppets, and gave them the homework assignment to bring in a found object that would be modified into puppet. On the third day, I introduced them to shadow puppets using an overhead projector (a style of shadow puppetry covered extensively in Theatre on a Tabletop: Puppetry for Small Places by Kuang-Yu Fong and Stephen Kaplin of Chinese Theatre Works)

(All photos by yours truly while I was operating the overhead projector.)


The kids were split into teams of three and sent to create circus-themed acts, which proved to be some of the most well-received aspects of the show they gave on Friday.

And now, a human tower on a unicycle!

Don't worry, folks: we have a net!

A tight-rope, a unicycle, and an elephant!

And now, ladies and gentlemen! The fire-breather!

Can the most fearsome of beasts jump through a hoop of the most fearsome of elements?

The PuppetSlam Mini-Tour, Part II: Brookline

After the late night drive back to Boston from Providence with Little's Creatures' Jon and Hakim, a shower, some sleep (I had been up just over 20 hours straight), breakfast and lunch, I had to get to work on cutting Arlecchino Am Ravenous into Arlecchino Am Abridged since the 32 minute one man play I performed at Blood From a Turnip on Friday night was not going to fit into the alloted ten minute slot at the PuppetSlam on Saturday night. Essentially, I had to sit down, go over the script and cut anything that wasn't absolutely necessary for telling a story with a coherent narrative. Very quickly, I realized that meant cutting Arlecchino's prayers for food as well as his trips to heaven and hell. The blasphemous theophany was gone, and while I managed to keep a few routines that of my own invention, I had felt that it had the journey was what made Arlecchino stand apart from the material that had inspired it: the traditional lazzo of La Fame dello Zanni ("The Starving Zanni") that I had first encountered by way of Dario Fo.

Nonetheless, because of the need to fit within time constraints forced me hew closer to tradition was, still informed by my own personal interpretation of that tradition, it was a great lesson in flexibility.

As Puppet Showplace primarily serves family audiences, most of their shows are matinées and this gave us a much longer period between load-in and show time. In fact, as I arrived, just a little before 4pm, a number of families were already exiting. This allowed me to catch some of a Q&A that Heidi Rugg (of Barefoot Puppets) was giving to an audience of young people who were interested in how she created a puppet show, from writing, to puppet and stage design. She would perform a piece in the Slam later that evening entitled "Alas, Poor Yorick" which was a puppeteer's reflections on mortality knowing that her puppets may outlive her.

The earlier load-in time gave us time for a tech-rehearsal and a more relaxed preparation for the show. Jonathan, who was hosting the evening, tested out some jokes with us as we ate sandwiches.

The show was dedicated to Kathleen Conroy Mukwashi, the out-going Artistic Director. She had essentially recruited me for the evening's show and she's a great puppeteer in her own right.

I got some very favorable feedback both during intermission and after the show, including from people with intimate familiarity with the commedia idiom, but the next day I would be attending kathak class where I knew I would be experiencing a healthy level of humility.

Notes:

With the exception of Baby Oil, all the performers from the previous night's show at Blood From a Turnip performed at the Slam.

Kyle MacKesey performed his first ever puppet show!

Diane Kordas performed broad political satire with a shadow puppet retelling of Chicken Little. Her husband, Bob, provided accompaniment on banjo.

Paul Sedgwick (no relation to Jim) presented an excerpt from his full length play The Banjo Lesson. The segment told the story of the banjo's origins in the Jola akonting.

The PuppetSlam Mini-Tour, Part I: Providence

January 15, 2010::
Friday evening, I caught the train from Boston's South Station to Providence to perform at Blood From a Turnip, a fifteen-year-old late-night puppet Salon at the Perishable Theatre. Having forgotten my map, I had to navigate my way to Providence's Downcity Arts District from my memory of landmarks from when Cosmic Spelunker Theater performed at AS220 back in 2004 (you can read an an interview I gave to the Providence Phoenix Bill Rodriguez here.)

Once I found my way to the brick sidewalks of Empire Street, I quickly found the foyer of the Perishable Theatre (actually the landing of the building's staircase, and met Vanessa Gilbert. Who whispered greetings, because, as she explained, there was little soundproofing, and a new radio serial, Destafano on the Air! by Cyrus Leddy was playing in the theatre. So we continued to talk shop in whispered tones and she had me come up with some biographical details she could use while she introduced my act. Soon afterwards, her co-host, Nicole Leduc, showed up as well as Jonathan Little and Hakim Reid of Little's Creatures showed up, and we decided to go next door to the Restaurant at AS220 for sustenance (I had the white bean and kale soup with vegan faux-bacon and coffee) while Nicole interviewed us for her hosting duties as well, in the process, getting completely different information from me than Vanessa had!

David Higgins, their co-curator met us after a while to tell us that Destafano on the Air! was about to let out and that we would be able to load in soon. Once we settled up we went back to Perishable. Perishable is a good sized black-box theatre. The room is bare-bones, like most blackboxes but the lighting rig is nothing to sneeze at. I did my costume change in the basement and started my stretches to which Jon, who specializes in hand-puppets, commented, "those poor masked performers: always having to stretch before shows."

Soon we were joined by Jim Sedgwick with his cart of props, Z. and Chad of WonderSpark Puppets and Baby Oil (a synthpop duo with a wickedly campy sense of humor) who were to provide our musical interludes for the evening.

Everyone went over their tech requirements with David who was running lights and sound that evening. Jim, who was going on first, set up his props and and headgear and then sat in a chair facing upstage so that when the audience finally poured in, they saw his back. The show was sold out to standing room only (and Providence audiences are willing to stand!)

This would be the first performance of Arlecchino Am Ravenous in a dedicated theatre space-- and I finally figured out why each full rehearsal and performance took so much energy. My experience from having staged readings of Total War, a particularly wordy play, is that each page averages about one minute, twenty four seconds. I had assumed that with all the physical lazzi that Arlecchino would average more like two minutes per page.

I was incorrect, after the show: it clocked in at thirty-two minutes; the length of many one-act plays, or roughly four minutes a page: far too long for many of the short-play festivals to which I had been submitting it. Somehow I had managed to forget to time any of my rehearsals or ask friends in prior audiences to time it for me-- thankfully no one had ever minded the length.

Still, I seemed to have kept a room laughing, and at times, gasping in shock and horror, for a little more than half-hour. The cause of one such gasp is going to be the topic of a forthcoming blog entry, tentatively titled, "Arlecchino meets Shylock" (I think that should be sufficient to tell you that it's going to deal with something serious.)

Nontheless, this meant that the following evening, at the PuppetSLAM, where there would be eight different acts, I would have to cut Arlecchino Am Ravenous into an approximately ten minute, Arlecchino Am Abridged

Notes:

Vanessa and Nicole are terrific co-hosting team.

Jim Sedgwick does really surreal stuff with props, costumes, and tape recordings, and if he had a website I would point you to it.

Baby Oil did a great bit where they requested the audience text message the singer's cellphone (which he was using as a codpiece) regarding their own "booty calls" and later in the show, the text messages were incorporated into the lyrics of a song. This was apparently their third gig, so they might not have a website yet.

Little's Creatures do classic early Henson-style puppet comedy sketches. They also gave me a lift back to Somerville. Jon, who was hosting PuppetSlam the following night, helped me brainstorm Arlecchino Am Abridged.

WonderSpark's "Jack and the Beanstalk 2: The Director's Cut," besides being incredibly entertaining, includes some wonderfully imaginative choreography where Z. and Chad, sitting in chairs, twist their bodies, give and take each other's weight, and otherwise form the landscapes that their puppet characters to inhabit.

Sorry: I have no new photographs. My camera broke a few months back.

January 15th: Arlecchino at Perishable Theatre's Blood From A Turnip

As last minute addition to my performance schedule, I will be performing Arlecchino Am Ravenous at Perishable Theatre's late night puppetry Salon, Blood from a Turnip, in Providence, Rhode Island on Friday, January 15th.

Show time starts at 10pm. Facebook users can RSVP here. Tickets are $5.

Perishable Theatre
95 Empire Street
Providence, RI

If you can't make it to Providence, I'm performing Arlecchino Am Ravenous at the PuppetSLAM at Puppet Showplace Theatre the following night.

Last time I performed in Providence was with Cosmic Spelunker Theatre. Here's a 2004 interview in the Providence Phoenix.

January 16th: Arlecchino Am Ravenous at PuppetSLAM

Photography by Shannon O'Connor; Montage by Ian Thal

Saturday, January 16th @ 8pm: I will be performing Arlecchino Am Ravenous as part of the PuppetSLAM at Puppet Showplace Theatre in Brookline.

Also performing:

Wonderspark Puppets
Little's Creatures
Kyle Mackesey
Paul Sedgwick
Jim Sedgwick
and Diane Kordas

Tickets are $15 and you can order them online or reserve them by calling the box office at 617-731-6400

Facebook users can also RSVP here.

Puppet Showplace Theatre
32 Station Street
Brookline MA 02445

I have previously performed Arlecchino Am Ravenous at The Gulu-Gulu Café, and Stone Soup Poetry. The piece originated as a series of improvisation on La Fame dello Zanni or "Starving Zanni" lazzo in preparation for a show at Willoughby & Baltic.

[N.B.: Added new information regarding line-up and links. January 11, 2010.]

Look Ma! I'm Part of the Curriculum! Part II

Once again, Matthew Isaac Cohen, of the Department of Drama and Theatre at Royal Halloway, University of London, is offering his class on Bread and Puppet Theater. I note this in part because my Breaking with Bread and Puppet is on the reading list. The class focusses on using the techniques Peter Schumann developed in the students' own theatre making, something that, despite my own political disagreements with Schumann, I fully endorse. I as I wrote back in October of 2007:

Despite my misgivings with what I view as Peter Schumann's forays into antisemitism and trivialization of the Holocaust, I have always thought there was great artistic value to his better works, both in techniques and content-- and I certainly see a legitimate need for theatre artists in training to become familiar with this sort of work. Had I not, I would not have worked with the troupe for as long as I did.

Can You Identify These Puppets? Part II

Last summer, I asked my readers if they could identify two Javanese Wayang Kulit puppets I had acquired at a yard sale.

So far we have had a number of opinions, but still no definitive identification of our two figures, other than a consensus that they are Javanese and not Balinese in origin (which is what the seller informed me)-- one anonymous poster identifies them as being specific to Central Java.

The first figure, who has a red face, an elaborate headdress and a gold body certainly seems to be of noble or royal office, but we are still no closer to putting a name to him. One friend of mine suggested that he was Rāvana from the Rāmāyaṇa but that contradicts the seller's statement that both figures were from the Mahãbhãrata. Indeed the previously cited anonymous poster suggested:

the first charachter might be Baladewa [...] definitely not Ravana.

Of Baladewa, I know nothing, and of whom I have yet to find an English language reference-- I do not even know if he goes by another name.



The second, smaller, blue figure was clearly of a lower status than the more elaborately dressed figure, and I was eager to assume that he was one of the comical figures of the Wayang known as punokawan but my anonymous poster seems vehemently opposed to that hypothesis.

The second (the blue guy) is definitely NOT a punakawan.

Once again, can any reader identify these puppets? How can one know that they are one figure and not another of similar status? I would so like to know their names so that I can learn their stories.

That other Macbeth

As mentioned previously, the Macbeth production I had been in was cancelled, so when I attended previews for the Actors' Shakespeare Project's production of the "Scottish Play" as an usher, I could not help but compare the two productions in my mind.

First of all, ASP's Macbeth is excellent. Much of the scuttlebutt about the Boston scene was about the decision to use an all female cast. However, rather than creating some campy Macbeth in drag, they delivered a striking production that involved some first rate actors in roles that they normally would not be allowed to play. After all, if a director can choose to cast (in my case) an male Ashkenazi Jew as a multitude of Scotsmen, why not women (of any ethnicity) as Scotsmen?

As an audience member, I was particularly excited by Marya Lowry's powerful Macbeth, and Bobbie Steinbach's strength and versatility as Duncan, the Porter, Warlike Siward, and one of the witches (this trio of witches, in their second appearance, use some physical comedy to make a vulgar pun that gives some credence to Alan K. Farrar's intuition that in the original production the witches were performed by the comedians in the troupe.) There was one actor (whom I will leave unnamed because the performance was a preview and I have confidence that subsequent performances will be improved upon) who has shown great comedic skills in other plays, but seemed to introduce a sarcastic or ironic tone of voice into what was supposed to be a tragic scene-- but that was the only false note of the show-- and it was a mistake that only someone of talent could make.

As said earlier, I was curious to see how other actors were going to attack roles for which I had rehearsed this past summer. Denise Cormier's version of the Bloody Captain was a fine version, but simply not how I imagined the role-- the joy of a classical repertoire is that roles are constantly being reinterpreted. As I developed the role, my Captain had become more stylized and inspired more by Odissi dancer Sonali Mishra's interpretation of Devi Mahakali (better known in the Anglophone world as the goddess Kālī) and a Samurai puppet piece I had seen twice performed by Paul Vincent Davis; hers was more naturalistic. She was clearly in a situation where she had to put more imaginative work into her more central role as a witch.

To my disappointment, the role of the Old Man, Ross' father, was dropped from this production but did not injure the story. The practice of cutting or rearranging lines, scenes, or characters is actually not uncommon when performing Shakespeare, either due to the length of the play, or due to the logistics of casting. I miss the character and his lines, but I must admit, he is not essential to the plot. The scene between Lennox and the unnamed Lord, from Act III was a joy and I savoured the reading of the Lord's lines even more so because it had been shifted to Act IV, which meant that during intermission I had fretted that the scene had been dropped entirely. In Act V, Cormier now had the role of Seyton, and performed much as I had during rehearsals with the Lollygagging Players which only made me more envious of her costume.

Look Ma! I'm part of the Curriculum!

While glancing at technorati, (a search engine for the blogosphere for those of you who are new to blogs) I discovered that my earlier entry, "Breaking with Bread and Puppet" is being read by a class in the Department of Drama and Theatre, Royal Holloway, University of London. The class, which has set up its own blog is investigating the techniques and history of Bread and Puppet Theater with the aim of having students attempt to use similar methods to create their own work over the course of the semester. The professors are Nesreen Hussein and Matthew Cohen.

Despite my misgivings with what I view as Peter Schumann's forays into antisemitism and trivialization of the Holocaust, I have always thought there was great artistic value to his better works, both in techniques and content-- and I certainly see a legitimate need for theatre artists in training to become familiar with this sort of work. Had I not, I would not have worked with the troupe for as long as I did. I will be curious about how the class reacts to my criticism of the work they are attempting to emulate.

Can You Identify These Puppets?

Earlier this summer, I chanced upon a garage sale only a block from home and found these two shadow puppets. After inquiring as to their price I was given an offer I could not refuse. They are part of the tradition of Wayang Kulit, the shadow puppet theatre of Indonesia. I had first seen puppets of this nature at the Smithsonian's Arthur G. Sackler Gallery of Asian Art in Washington, D.C., likely when I was on break from college. While the soon-to-be former owner was able to tell me that these puppets were of Javanese origin (as opposed to the Balinese puppets I had seen at the Sackler) he could only identify them as figures from the heroic epic, the Mahãbhãrata.

So, dear reader, can you help me identify them? It is clear that the red faced fellow is a prince or noble of some sort, and that the blue fellow is of lower status, but is he a lower-ranked prince? A servant? Perhaps one of the comical figures of Wayong known as punokawan who, from their description, seem analogous to the zanni characters I often play when I perform commedia dell'arte?

Click here for the full photo set. My apologies as they are not my best photographs.

An evening with Ian Thal and the String Theory Marionettes @ Willoughby and Baltic

I'll be performing an evening of my original work, which incorporates poetry, mime, and and theatrical clowning, at Willoughby and Baltic on Saturday, July 21st. Also appearing will be the String Theory Marionettes who will be performing in the Teeny Lounge. The marionettes will be joined by the voice of Jimmy Tingle.

Coffee, chocolates, and mocktails will be available at the refreshment stand. Show starts at 8pm. Admission is $5

Willoughby & Baltic
195g Elm Street
Davis Square
Somerville, MA 02144
617-501-0197