Everyone loves Elmo

"Everyone loves Elmo" according to ABC Nightline reporter, Juju Chang in New York, who recently interviewed the cute fury creature for Nightline. It's been a while since the 2011 documentary hit "Being Elmo" was released and what really drives me crazy is that I haven't yet got the opportunity to see it.

Extraordinary puppeteer Kevin Clash is the subject of an award-winning documentary Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey, first screened at American film festivals. Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, this documentary includes rare archival footage, interviews with Frank Oz, Rosie O’Donnell, Cheryl Henson, Joan Ganz Cooney and others and offers a behind-the-scenes look at Sesame Street and the Jim Henson Workshop. It has won awards internationally and it certainly worth a watch. You can check out the trailer for "Being Elmo" here!

Nina Conti previews new show in London

Renowned British ventriloquist Nina Conti is previewing her new show "Whoops We're Alive" at The Little Angel Theatre in London on 25 March & 15 April, according to Peter Glanville, director of the Little Angel. There's also a feature on Conti's first film 'Her Master's Voice' in yesterday's Guardian newspaper here!

Conti, daughter of British actor Tom Conti, has had an extra-ordinary career in theatre, TV, radio and now film. I met her briefly, while performing at the Suspense Festival in London last November and was blown away by her stage presence and sense of humour. If you haven't seen her work, you ought to, so click here!

Conti is a global jet setter and besides her upcoming performances at The Little Angel in London, she'll also be appearing once again at the Udderbelly Comedy Festival in Melbourne, Australia in May-June. For tickets and information, click here.

Muppet Noir is coming..

"In a world where puppets co-exist with humans as second class citizens, puppet private eye and disgraced ex-cop, Phil Phillips, is hot on the trail of the serial killer who murdered his brother and is now targeting the cast members of the famous 80s television show, 'The Happytime Gang.' As the killings continue, Phil’s former flame, Jenny, is next on the list. It’s up to Phil and his ex-partner, Detective Edwards, to find the culprit, but as bad blood and old resentments resurface the clues start pointing to the only viable suspect, Phil himself. Now he’s on the run with only his wits and hard headed determination, as he tries to solve, 'The Happytime Murders'.” 

The Happytime Murders, a movie about a world where puppets and humans co-exist and a puppet detective must solve a murder (think a Muppets version of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?).  It's no longer an original concept, but it's the return of 'The Henson Muppets'- this time in a non-Muppet movie, cause the Muppets are now officially owned by Disney. But a puppet starring as 'a private eye' might be something you think you might have seen before? That might well be, because just a few short years back, Australian comedian, Jon Williams, made a short film based on this very concept. 'Soft Cop' told the story of a private eye that get's caught up in a series of suspicious murders, much like the Henson's concept above. (Check it out here!)

The film is set to be directed by Brian Henson, the son of Muppets founder Jim Henson, and produced by Henson studios. Henson directed Muppet Treasure Island and a Muppet Christmas Carol. The script is by Kung Fu Panda scribe Todd Berger. Katherine Heigl is attached to star.

An Australian Festival of Puppetry

Vanessa Ellis performance (Photo: Andrew Hobbs)

Driving through the tiny Victorian town of Maldon feels like traveling back in a time machine to the mid-eighteen hundreds. The quaint shops and buildings in the main street are lost in time and space. This is the town, 136 km north of Melbourne, where the first Tarrengower Puppetry Festival was held over the past long-weekend. The very first edition of this festival saw an interesting gathering of Australian puppeteers together with the local community crammed into the venues throughout the town, to enjoy the performances and workshops spanning the three-days.

The highlights of the festival were certainly the cabaret-slam events, which gave the audience an  opportunity to experience a mixed bunch of puppetry artists, using extremely diverse genres to entertain the crowds. I personally loved the classic Flea Circus performed by Sydney-based puppeteer, Dennis Murphy; the world famous shadows of Richard Bradshaw and The Cautionary Tale of Barry Von Peabody and the Scarlet Street Theatre by Melbourne based puppeteer, Jacob Williams of company Lemony S. (You can view some of pics by photographer Andrew Hobbs on the Tarrengower Times website here!)

Artistic Director of the festival, Richard Hart, spent the past few months trying to solve the jigsaw puzzle of fitting performers into the variety of available small venues from an underground gold mine to the Museum of Machinery. With all its teething troubles and there were a few, the festival created an awareness of puppetry in rural Victoria, which will hopefully open the minds and hearts of the local community to more involvement and participation in future festivals and from the words of the Mayor, "The Puppet Festival will now become an annual event in Maldon".

Tarrengower Festival this weekend...

This weekend sees the long awaited first edition of the Tarrengower Puppet Festival in regional Victoria, Australia. Many of us will be making the long two-hour drive north to experience a long weekend of puppetry and friends. 

Even my three-year old is so excited that he'll get to meet his hero "Dreamer" once again.

The Artistic Director of Tarrengower Festival, Richard Hart says: "puppet theatre that is performed by excellent artists who have mastered their craft, transcends all boundaries, as in any art form.  It can give an audience another arena for theatrical experience and transform them.  To this end, I am presenting puppeteers who are among the best in their field".

If you live in Melbourne or not too far away, take a drive to Maldon and join us at the festival. You can also book for the performances and workshops online here!

World Puppetry Day 2012 Message

Three puppeteers hanging at Hanging Rock, Australia: Steve Scott (left), Joan Baixas (centre) and Gary Friedman (right)

A very special message has been released by UNIMA in plenty time for our next 'World Puppetry Day' which takes place on 21 March 2012. This year it was written by master-puppeteer and dear friend from Barcelona, Joan Baixas. You can find my previous blogs about Joan Baixas here and here.

"With a firm gesture we put aside newspapers, switch off newscasts and propose a toast to the art and the brotherhood, today is a festive day, we celebrate the World’s Day of Puppetry.

We cannot forget about the grief, the painful reality of mishaps and penuries troubling the world, but exactly because we do not want to forget, we commit ourselves to celebrate human dignity, the insatiable zeal of men to strengthen life against misfortune and death.

Art is a hymn to this dignity, bringing together in continuous tides past and future generations, cultures and clans, by poetry. Art establishes complicity of views between persons who are marvelling together, creator and spectator, about the exploration of the unknown. Every artistic act is a disturbing grain of sand in the gearing of reality.

The art of puppetry is leading towards these objectives at a fair speed. Every time we animate a character we sign a declaration of independence. As an unruly child of the arts of images and words, of interpretation and narration, the marionette reinforces the commitment to innocence, place of happiness and also calls for the other extreme, cruelty.
Innocence is important, is harmonious and fertile, as testified by Jarry or Kurosawa, Miró or Arseniev and many others.

For cruelty one only has to take measures of the costume and look in the face with sarcasm.

“ The animal lives in nature like the water in the water” (M. Eliade). The marionette lives in the imaginary like the water in the water. A territory where reason verges on the flows of the animal and vegetal kingdoms, of earth and water, the imaginary is the energy reserve of people and tribes and the marionette plays there freely like a king, does not analyse, does not intervene, prospers.

“The differentiating feature of the human animal is the animation and the first animation which made men are the gods. Animation makes us to persons.” (P. Sloterdijk). The sharpness of this philosophical reflection pervades the mood in the main act of the puppeteer: to give life to the inanimate and to convene people around this sorcery.

Already some years ago, a handful of puppeteers had the wise idea to create an organization to strengten international exchange. Unima, already turned into a consolidated reality and extended all over the world, is now more than ever necessary to manage the professional efforts regarding the objectives of the art and human dignity.

So, we praise the gods for granting us this profession, we thank our grandfathers for creating Unima and we celebrate the magnificence of the art of the imaginary, we bring a toast to the marionette. Friends, let’s have a GREAT PARTY!"
To link to Joan Baixas' website, click here!

Special FXs Muppets or not?

Do the special effects in the new 'Muppet Movie' make the movie or make it like all the other movies released in recent years?

We finally got to see the new Muppet Movie this week with our (almost) three-year old boy. He loved it, although he did get a little restless towards the end. However we're not discussing a small child's 'sitting-power' during the movie, but rather if the movie was really enhanced and enriched by the power of modern technology used by Disney?  In the old days of The Muppets (the nineteen-eighties), Jim Henson combined so many simple puppetry techniques to achieve a really simple but effective end result. Remember Kermit riding the bicycle in the first Muppet Movie? (See the photo of Henson manipulating the close-up Kermit)

In addition to the marionette used in long shots, a Kermit hand puppet was used in close-ups, where it was operated by Jim Henson from a low-rolling dolly. The two types of shots were inter-cut repeatedly to enhance the illusion.

So my question is 'have the Muppets really improved with all our new technology or did the original characters, with all their flaws have more personality' as they broke through many barriers in order to convince their audience of their 'reality'?
(Our thanks to PuppetVision Blog for the alert)

Fascinating Automatons

Automatons have suddenly come back into vogue since the recent release of 'Hugo', Martin Scorsese's beautiful adaptation of Brian Selznick's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret. 
Automata are mechanically controlled puppets. They are mechanically driven. Today we might even refer to them as robots, though this is really a term that was only invented in the 1920s. The history of the automaton (the singular of automata) goes back much, much further and can be traced to the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. 

Hero of Alexandria, who lived during the first century A.D., was an inventor credited with the creation of many devices including the first vending machine (it dispensed holy water when the buyer dropped in a coin). Hero supposedly created a whole automata theater that gave a performance ten minutes in length. According to accounts, the device was controlled by a series of ropes with knots tied in them. As the rope was pulled through the device, the knots moved levers which caused actions to happen on the miniature stage. By all accounts the history of Automata are tied up with the history of puppetry and share many similar stories. You can find more information at the Museum of UnNatural Mystery here.

CBS News in the United States recently took at look at the reemergence of the Automaton and it's influence from the world of Hugo Cabret. You can view this fascinating report here.  Michael Start of The House of Automata, based in Scotland was invited to be the consultant on the film and teach the actors how to work with the automata. You can view a clip of their work here.  Another fascinating short clip reveals the making of Hugo, which you can see here.
I would like to acknowledge the Puppet Crit newsletter and my thanks to Hobey Ford's post this morning that started me on this piece of research into the wonderful world of Automata.

Marionetas de Mandrágora hidden Portuguese treasures

Why is it that foreign languages frighten so many Anglophone web browsers away from a truly inspiring website? Because some find a new language as poetic and inspiring as 'Portuguese' truly frightening? Well, get over it and you'll discover so many hidden treasures on the web and the high-creative Lisbon-based puppet company, Marionetas de Mandrágora, must be one of them.
When Portuguese puppeteer Filipa Mesquita wrote to me this week and referred me to their two blog sites, I was quite astonished that I had not discovered their great work before. Their blogs can be found here and their Puppet Building blog here. Do take a look!

As Improbable as Mr Punch...

Backstage last night at the Sidney Meyer Music Bowl in Melbourne, where we were performing our Australian Survival Day production, I was chatting to a traditional Commedia del Arte 'Arlequino' about the disappearance of Punch and Judy from our lives and today I discover one of the British theatre heroes of our time, Julian Crouch, is giving a new voice to the villainous archetype.

Think of Mr Punch and you tend to conjure up a vision of traditional seaside entertainment and children’s birthday parties. Comedy crocodiles and strings of felt sausages project a rather quaint – some might say cute – picture-postcard image on the mind’s eye. However, that would be to ignore the large thwacking stick with which Punch wallops his wife and antagonises the local constabulary. In fact, the figure of Mr Punch, who celebrates his 350th anniversary in Covent Garden, London in May, has a far darker side that is all too easily forgotten.

‘I don’t find him cute at all,’ says Crouch, one of the artistic directors of Improbable Theatre, whose latest theatre piece for the company, The Devil and Mister Punch, comes to the Barbican Centre’s Pit Theatre. ‘He tends to be pretty violent, actually. I own a couple of Punch masks and when you put them on, you start to feel quite aggressive.’

Witness a tragic comedy of manslaughter and love. It's Punch and Judy but as presented by Messrs Harvey and Hovey, a pair of broken vaudevillians who are now in the gutter and have been reduced to presenting a puppet show that goes wildly off-course.

Featuring a lush score of bass fiddle, gin parlour piano, metronome and bells, this dark but hilarious show is performed on a gloriously theatrical wood-panelled set. Inside this shadowy world live a steaming crocodile, a parade of piggies, the devil and many other extraordinary characters. 

Crouch is fascinated by the ‘nostalgia of theatre’. By returning to an old- fashioned theme, The Devil and Mister Punch bucks the trend of contemporary puppetry, much of which currently aims to break ties with its childish, simplistic connotations. ‘The glove puppet is perceived as probably the lowliest of all theatrical forms. It’s seen as a gutter art, but it can totally surprise you. It comes in under the radar.

It is something that says: “Look, I’m just a glove puppet. Nothing I say is important.” But of course, it absolutely is. It may be the gutter, but you can see the moon reflected in the water. There’s something heavenly about the gutter.’

Equally, there’s something adult about this staple figure of childhood entertainment. Mr Punch is not merely a kid’s plaything – as his encounter with the devil and Julian Crouch is bound to show.

Improbable’s innovative work ranges from small scale theatre, such as Panic at the Barbican in 2009, to large opera productions, including Philip Glass’s Satyagraha, co-produced with ENO and a sell-out hit in London and at The Metropolitan Opera, New York.  Don't miss The Devil and Mister Punch which opens at The Barbican Theatre on 2nd February 2012.