Tuesday, 31 March 2015

10 things to know about Citizen Puppet! Assistant Director, Fiona Clift, tells us all...

What was Citizen Puppet about?
Puppet's telling the story of the English fairytale "Jack and the Beanstalk" from their perspective.

What is Puppet Verbatim?
It's the real words of actual puppets, edited together into a script.

Why Jack and the Beanstalk?
We discovered that a fairytale to a puppet, is like crime watch to a human. Specifically, we explored Jack and the Beanstalk as a possible metaphor for the banking crisis and for the environmental crisis.

What were the inspirations behind the show?
Verbatim theatre, The Laramie Project, 999 (TV Show), Documentaries such as 'Man on Wire' all came up during rehearsals

Who were the characters?
Tina Henderson - Scottish Granny
Howie and Louie - Polish Jewish bankers
DI Clive - Puppet Police
Suki Armstrong Chan - Jack's girlfriend
Helen Shepherd - Jack's maths teacher
Terry Lynch - Spiritual guide
Daz Brayhew - Farmer

What were the puppets like?
The puppets are like works of art. They have moving mouths and expressive faces, and cloth bodies, with some fantastic costumes on. 

What were the puppets like to work with?
They are great fun to improvise and find characters with. As they have moving mouths, they are more challenging to move around and at the moment they can be done with one person as they are all sitting on puppet chairs. This is challenging and freeing at the same time.

What was different about it from other Blind Summit shows you have worked on?
The piece was a collaboration between students from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, who had done very little puppetry before, and the Blind Summit 'Table' ensemble.

Who was your favourite puppet?
DI Clive

What was your favourite moment of the show?

DI Clive talking about getting a shitsu after his wife left him. Also the blackout at the beginning after Tina's opening monologue was really exciting. 


http://www.blindsummit.com/fionaclift.htm

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