Scripts created for each project as noted
Artistic Director - Richard Termine
Guest Artists -David Farrell, Larry Reed
Rose Memorial Theater Barn & Dina Merrill Theater
Eugene O'Neill Center, Waterford CT / (860) 443-1238
At the beginning of each summer at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford CT, a week-long workshop program, the National Puppetry Conference, brings together leading puppet artists, emerging practitioners of theatrical puppetry, and adventurous graduate level students to continue exploring this ancient theatre form, once again becoming prevalent in stage practice. This year's guest artists were John Farrell of Maine's Figures of Speech Theatre and San Francisco's Larry Reed of Shadowlight. Each used their unique approach to theatre to present new work in development. Reed used his large scale shadow techniques, seen two years ago at the Henson International Festival in New York, to create "El Californio", an epic based on a script by Octavio Solis exploring the settlement of California by the Spanish as seen by native eyes. Farrell created a movement piece based on a composite myth concerning birth and rebirth, featuring a full stage set including a hanging crysalis which unfolded to reveal a small dancer, a symbolic forest of hanging bamboo poles, and a horizontal hanging branch which became the stage for one puppets struggle towards rebirth.
While the guest artists set the tone for the conference, which was noticeably serious this year, the several emerging artists invited to work on pieces they have been developing, often provide the most excitement. This year there were six individual projects. Douglass Paasch from Seattle presented Infinite Noir, where the characters in a sterotypical detective thriller, the private dick, the dame, the mobster, were represented simply by their clothes, except for the stoolie, who was played by a window blind. Cherie Panek offered Within the Hush, a poetic meditation on suicide and redemption done with tabletop figures manipulated by a tight ensemble of four puppeteers. Greg Ruhe attempted an oriental fantasy, Desert Love, with simplified rod puppets of varying size and high-energy manipulation, racing around in a story inspired by the 1001 Nights.
Playwright Bonnie Remsberg condensed her abstract docudrama Fireball into a piece which Lenny Pinna, the Conference dramaturg, with the help of designer Ellen Seeling and composer Alison Reid was able to turn into a compelling expressionist look at corruption in the Chicago courts. Most of the puppets were constructed from corrugated cardboard, including a giant head of the late Mayor Daly. Ariel Golderger took ideas from the Kabbala to create two vignettes for a work The Master of Prayer which will be continued in collaboration with Adam Melnick.Again, Alison Reid provided music, this time for Hebrew letters dancing off the pages of a prayerbook. Finally, Caleb Fullam presented scenes from "Aubrey Beardsley - A Singular Artist", featuring chapters from"Venus and Tannhauser" as narrated shadow play with art inspired by the original. All six of these projects were performed by members and associates of New London's Flock Theatre, under the direction of Derron Wood and Russell Tucker. Flock performs year rpound in the area, at schools and colleges.
Since it is impossible to see both these six projects and the dozen or so smaller pieces generated by conference participants, I can only report that those who did see these skits seemed quite amused. Some participants did however work with director Martin P. Robinson on the second year of Puppet Anarchy, a free-form exploration of object improvisation and similar out-of-the box thinking. The group's most compelling piece was a many stringed marionette, operated by nine people, trying to cross its leg, something of a metaphor for some of the problems of large-scale theatrical puppetry - and perhaps a minor protest over the omission of the marionette workshop from this year's conference.
A program derived from this evening will probably be done in N.Y.C. sometime in early winter, most likely at the HERE center in Manhattan, joining the growing number of serious puppet events in the city. With luck, some will emerge into full blown theatre. The number of serious puppet presentations has escalated in recent years, due at first to the inspiration of the biennial Henson International Festival, but lately through the efforts of artists all over the city.