Puppets in Contemporary Adult Theatre- An Interview with Blind Summit

Puppets in Contemporary Adult Theatre- An Interview with Blind Summit

01 December, 2009
by: Naima Khan

Theatres have long followed the trend set by shows like Sesame Street and our own beloved Sooty of using puppets to be didactic, entertaining and stimulating for young audiences. Thankfully, the new millennium has ushered in an age of sophisticated, witty puppetry for adults.

The beginning of November saw the arrival of Suspense, the first festival of puppetry to grace the theatres of London in almost 25 years. Seven venues hosted the work of twenty four theatre companies providing insightful, majestic puppetry to the masses. This winter, pioneers of puppetry Blind Summit Theatre will bring their innovative adaptation of George Orwell’s classic novel 1984 to Battersea Arts Centre until January 2nd.

The folks at Blind Summit are responsible for the awe-inspiring puppets in His Dark Materials and Madame Butterfly. Nick Barnes and Mark Down gave us their take on the appeal of puppetry in adult theatre: “the gripping thing about it is that it is done in front of you, live, by skilled performers working together in a perfect symphony. I never tire of watching good performances. Our puppetry tends to use several puppeteers on one puppet.” Critics raved about the impact of the non-speaking puppet in Madame Butterfly, ‘A Bunraku puppet, operated – as is traditional – by three visible, but totally self-effacing puppeteers, and far more expressive than any child actor” (Paul Levy, The Wall Street Journal-Europe).



Much of the appeal of puppetry is to do with conjuring and magic. We like to be amazed and every creative director is challenged to impress their audience. Puppeteers and directors have their own reasons for using puppets. As well as wanting to astound the audience, sometimes puppets fit the part better than any actor could. In His Dark Materials, the mysterious daemons attached to each pivotal character are graceful but powerful and mysterious – perfectly suited to the use of delicate puppets.

Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez, the creators of hit Broadway and West End show Avenue Q explained to British Theatre Guide that puppets can also provide a new dimension to comedy: “That's why we use puppets. If it was just us it would be too normal. We wanted the puppets and the humour to let us look at the reality. We needed a layer of fantasy and that's provided by the puppets".



1984, Orwell’s dystopia of mind-control, muted expression and emotionless robotic behaviour is a perfect fit for puppet theatre as is the protagonist’s intellectual and emotional rebellion: “In this show the whole story is puppeted – the characters, the language and the world – and there are a few puppets too!” The story follows Winston Smith, his rejection of the control and power wielded by Big Brother, and his illicit romance with Julia.

Part of bringing puppets to an adult audience ensuring that shows address adult concerns and come from recognisable experiences. Of their reason for choosing to adapt 1984, Nick and Mark said: “It was a novel we read when we were young – before 1984 – and we were initially excited by the challenge of presenting it to potentially two generations born since then! We like the power of the message, the humanity of the message. We liked the idea of tackling the technology in the story without using any technology. It has so many resonances today”.



There are, of course, huge challenges in creating a puppet-heavy theatre production: “Writing dialogue for puppets is difficult – you always end up wishing they were actors. Our solution was to frame the play as an agit prop – or "gadget prop" – production which is didactic, overtly political and often uses puppetry. Also we only have one speaking puppet in it!”

Blind Summit has been touring around the UK with 1984: “Puppets can be quite a headache to tour with – throwing booths out of hotel windows etc etc. We just finished a week in Northampton – 3 people got the flu but we had fantastic audiences! We are now in Eastleigh, next Newbury before London. We are all working hard and the show is developing daily”.

What does the future hold for Blind Summit?: “We go straight from this into a project at Central School of Speech and Drama where we are adapting The Call of the Wild by Jack London with the 3rd year CDT students. There are some more collaborations next year and we would love to tour 1984 to a wider audience”. The show will be at Battersea Arts Centre from December 2nd. If reviews and audience reaction from the tour are anything to go by, we'll be astounded, horrified and filled with righteous energy. Sounds like quite a show...

Click here for Puppet Theatre
Click here for Classic Theatre
Click here for Things to do in London

Naima Khan