Puppets as Actors
One of the tropes in clowning, is that when the clown takes their bow at the end of the performance, they will acknowledge the props and puppets they have been working with and allow the audience to applaud for them too.
Years ago I saw a clown show that had two performers, a man and a woman. There was a step ladder that was part of their show, and when they took their bows at the end they both gestured toward the step ladder so we could thank them too.
At the end of Frontal Lobotomy, I gesture towards my ‘band’ now sitting in a row on the floor. The band that upstages me earlier in the show, but that I incorporate into a song about dreams toward the end, and now in a different costume. My band of furry animals (and they all have stage names, as well as real ones) usually get a big cheer.
But the last time I performed Testy Manifesto, when I took a bow, I lifted the black cloak that was covering the skeleton puppet that I use throughout, as if to acknowledge him as an actor too, and the audience booed. And I said to my friend in the pub afterwards, he’s actually a really nice guy, he just has to play the role of the arsehole. So when I do that show again Alfonse the skeleton will have to remain covered. The audience isn’t ready to forgive him.
Wanda the Wandering Womb also upstages me, this is what happens when you let your womb say what it wants to say. Bobby Cool the Tom Waits puppet makes an appearance at the beginning and end of the show, but the rest of the time he just observes.
At the time, alongside all this importance I give all my puppets, I am the only alive thing onstage, so it is all just my imagination. And they are there to help me make it visible. Nearly everything onstage with me gets used more than once. The drinks, lipstick and mouthcoil I need to keep topped up.
Use of Costume
I even like the costumes to have more than one purpose. It’s hard to explain, but they need to have more significance than things I take off and put on during the course of either show. I get in and out of costumes in full view of the audience. Sometimes they have a mind of their own, and the transition isn’t very smooth. These are the places I try to use burlesque, because if I am going to change costumes onstage, I’m going to try and do it artfully and surprisingly. I haven’t seen many performers who do this.
I think an early influence for me was seeing Camille O’Sullivan perform. She seemed to blend the light and shadow in the same way I wanted to. She entered the stage through the audience in a black coat, sang a sad song, and then the band started up, and she ripped off her coat and thrashed around. She doesn’t do this in her shows anymore, they have become much more timid. I think she allowed me to see for the first time in 2008, that you could be all of yourself onstage. And that your costumes could morph as you did through the arc of the show.
One of my teachers at LISPA used to say ‘Every prop is an actor.’ We used to do a lot of work on just using body and voice, and sometimes not voice – you can’t speak behind a neutral mask. It seems the aim of those early weeks and months of the Lecoq pedagogy is to strip you back, and then gradually build you back, layer by layer. After this process I became a poet, and I brought back all of the props, set, costume, sound. It wasn’t a conscious rebellion against all I’d learned, I still carry that training with me.
Gecko
I did a week long residency with Gecko in 2022. Gecko have an interesting technique that they use in their ensemble performances. The actors mutter, usually in their mother tongue. We did a lot of it over that week, and I understood what it did, how it seemed to elevate the scene, but I didn’t know why. At the end of the week, when it was winding down, and we were having chats, I asked one of our facilitators who is an actor with Gecko, why we mutter. He said in a nutshell ‘because it keeps us in touch with our breath.’
I often dream of being a performer that can just walk onto a stage, without having to lug around my own props and set, and even lighting/sound. I can just mark out a space and do a solo platform piece. Or collaborate with a musician. I think once I have finished and performed my new show plenty of times, then this is the performer I will aspire to be.
New show update
So far I’ve made a list of research avenues I’m going to explore around the themes of the show. I’m working on a poem about the terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Years Eve of this year.
I’ve got plans to use the drama studio again at the school I work at. And also make more use of the facilities I have there. I want to do some filming and interviews. I want to visit some places, and try to soak up some art that isn’t mine.
And I also want to turn Testy Manifesto into a book, as I did with Frontal Lobotomy. And so unless someone offers me a really great gig, I won’t be doing any performing until Spring next year, when I hope to have the next iteration of Pithy Obituary ready to share. By next October I hope to have the show completed. So for now I will burrow down into my cave and maybe pop out for an few open mics or workshops here and there over the winter.
‘With love in all directions’ (stolen from Zuma Puma – Thank you!)
JJlF xx
One of the tropes in clowning, is that when the clown takes their bow at the end of the performance, they will acknowledge the props and puppets they have been working with and allow the audience to applaud for them too.
Years ago I saw a clown show that had two performers, a man and a woman. There was a step ladder that was part of their show, and when they took their bows at the end they both gestured toward the step ladder so we could thank them too.
At the end of Frontal Lobotomy, I gesture towards my ‘band’ now sitting in a row on the floor. The band that upstages me earlier in the show, but that I incorporate into a song about dreams toward the end, and now in a different costume. My band of furry animals (and they all have stage names, as well as real ones) usually get a big cheer.
But the last time I performed Testy Manifesto, when I took a bow, I lifted the black cloak that was covering the skeleton puppet that I use throughout, as if to acknowledge him as an actor too, and the audience booed. And I said to my friend in the pub afterwards, he’s actually a really nice guy, he just has to play the role of the arsehole. So when I do that show again Alfonse the skeleton will have to remain covered. The audience isn’t ready to forgive him.
Wanda the Wandering Womb also upstages me, this is what happens when you let your womb say what it wants to say. Bobby Cool the Tom Waits puppet makes an appearance at the beginning and end of the show, but the rest of the time he just observes.
At the time, alongside all this importance I give all my puppets, I am the only alive thing onstage, so it is all just my imagination. And they are there to help me make it visible. Nearly everything onstage with me gets used more than once. The drinks, lipstick and mouthcoil I need to keep topped up.
Use of Costume
I even like the costumes to have more than one purpose. It’s hard to explain, but they need to have more significance than things I take off and put on during the course of either show. I get in and out of costumes in full view of the audience. Sometimes they have a mind of their own, and the transition isn’t very smooth. These are the places I try to use burlesque, because if I am going to change costumes onstage, I’m going to try and do it artfully and surprisingly. I haven’t seen many performers who do this.
I think an early influence for me was seeing Camille O’Sullivan perform. She seemed to blend the light and shadow in the same way I wanted to. She entered the stage through the audience in a black coat, sang a sad song, and then the band started up, and she ripped off her coat and thrashed around. She doesn’t do this in her shows anymore, they have become much more timid. I think she allowed me to see for the first time in 2008, that you could be all of yourself onstage. And that your costumes could morph as you did through the arc of the show.
One of my teachers at LISPA used to say ‘Every prop is an actor.’ We used to do a lot of work on just using body and voice, and sometimes not voice – you can’t speak behind a neutral mask. It seems the aim of those early weeks and months of the Lecoq pedagogy is to strip you back, and then gradually build you back, layer by layer. After this process I became a poet, and I brought back all of the props, set, costume, sound. It wasn’t a conscious rebellion against all I’d learned, I still carry that training with me.
Gecko
I did a week long residency with Gecko in 2022. Gecko have an interesting technique that they use in their ensemble performances. The actors mutter, usually in their mother tongue. We did a lot of it over that week, and I understood what it did, how it seemed to elevate the scene, but I didn’t know why. At the end of the week, when it was winding down, and we were having chats, I asked one of our facilitators who is an actor with Gecko, why we mutter. He said in a nutshell ‘because it keeps us in touch with our breath.’
I often dream of being a performer that can just walk onto a stage, without having to lug around my own props and set, and even lighting/sound. I can just mark out a space and do a solo platform piece. Or collaborate with a musician. I think once I have finished and performed my new show plenty of times, then this is the performer I will aspire to be.
New show update
So far I’ve made a list of research avenues I’m going to explore around the themes of the show. I’m working on a poem about the terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Years Eve of this year.
I’ve got plans to use the drama studio again at the school I work at. And also make more use of the facilities I have there. I want to do some filming and interviews. I want to visit some places, and try to soak up some art that isn’t mine.
And I also want to turn Testy Manifesto into a book, as I did with Frontal Lobotomy. And so unless someone offers me a really great gig, I won’t be doing any performing until Spring next year, when I hope to have the next iteration of Pithy Obituary ready to share. By next October I hope to have the show completed. So for now I will burrow down into my cave and maybe pop out for an few open mics or workshops here and there over the winter.
‘With love in all directions’ (stolen from Zuma Puma – Thank you!)
JJlF xx
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