Week V — Puppets, Actors and Trying Again

—"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."
Samuel Beckett

So, missed Samuel Beckett? No? I expected as much. Anyway, that's what I expect from this blog: If I fail, I'll try again, having learned from my mistakes. Or so I hope.

What is a puppet?

What I hope our pirates will resemble.

It depends according to who do you ask. But I think it's a tool; an extension of the puppeteer. The puppeteer has a special bond with his puppet, which starts when the puppeteer begins crafting his puppet. As the puppet begins to take form, the puppeteer slowly becomes attached to the figure, as it's the fruit of his work. This makes the puppeteer want to actually employ his puppet onstage.

Puppets are used because they can do things human actors cannot: they can be disassembled and assembled again; they can move and contort in ways impossible for humans; they can fly, float, swim... However, they have restrictions. Which can be used as advantages, too. For instance, we saw a small play featuring a puppet representing Ian Curtis. This puppet was about one foot tall, almost completely white, and with literally a blank face. This gives a certain mood to the play, in this case grim. The small size of the puppet was used to make a stage out of a table, and make something close to the audience—both metaphorically and literally. The fact puppets cannot speak by themselves (this one didn't even had a mouth) was compensated by a radio playing Joy Division and moving the puppet's head as if it was singing next to a tiny microphone on its stand. He was made to fly. We were shown how an epileptic seizure looked for the puppet (or at least how the puppeteers felt it would be).

Reflecting on this last class made me think on the school play and how to take advantages of the limitations of puppets. The most evident way is to employ different sizes of puppets (or actors) to show how the character watching the scene (the audience's character) sees those characters; let it be a giant puppet showcasing the respect or fear towards that character, or a small hand puppet to show inferiority. I, however, wanted to look for something deeper, and couldn't really think of a way. This will be my self-project this week.

Another limit is the expressionless face a puppet has. Or the face caught in a single expression chosen by the puppeteer—or by the puppet itself, depending on how you see it. This faces resemble masks, in the sense that they are frozen in a single expression. This can be overcome by playing with lights and shadows; check Noh masks. This limit can be turned into an advantage and even exploited using the Activation Theory. You could introduce different expressions, use puppets that can vary (even a little) their expression, or even make the puppet be involved in events that should produce emotions in the puppet; emotions that aren't shown to the public until later on. Play with novelty, complexity, variation and uncertainty.

Anyway, back to the question. What is a puppet? We were asked this question at class on Wednesday. And I came to this conclusion: a puppet is an actor, as well as the puppeteer. How? Well, the puppet makes actions—just as actors do. Puppets make effects surface on the audience, and I believe that's key on acting. but to know whether the puppet or the puppeteer is the actor, we must know what an actor is. I don't want to ruin a perfectly good theme for next week's blog, however. So, think about it until next time. What is an actor?