With The Grand Death of the Puppets, Variationsthe Canadian company of The Old Trout Puppet Workshop delivers a delightful game of puppet massacres.
A castle. A castle which, although massive, seems all the more classic, with its striped hangings on the sides, its central stage, its red and gold colors and its ornamented pediment. In this scenography referring to a whole tradition of puppet theatre, The Old Trout Puppet Workshop team will work on the methodical killing of its characters. Built according to a succession of sketches, The Grand Death of the Puppets, Variations (show created in 2006 and since then regularly resumed) results, in fact, for almost all of them in one or even several disappearances. There are accidental deaths, those premeditated and those, once more, natural. There are the deaths that might be linked to a domestic accident, those resulting from dangerous behavior or those resulting from the irruption of the fantastic. From time to time, elements (a dead leaf recalling, who knows, the end of everything in our lower world) like characters return, including an old man, Nathaniel Tweak, who, officiating like a master of ceremonies, will end like all his companions.
The idea of « variations » mentioned in the title is embodied in several elements. In addition to the various types of puppets used by the three actress-manipulators (rod puppets, direct-action puppets, etc.), in addition to using all the possibilities of the play area – the sequences that can take place on the stage of the castelet as in the front of the stage or on the sides, in addition to changes of scale, the variations are also found in the writing and in the registers approached. We thus pass from a satirical mode of bloody devouring to the crushing of a character by an avenging fist.
So described, it might sound morbid. It is nothing and this show is as fiercely funny as it is touching. Faced with these puppets which, although different, are all characterized by a rather monstrous aspect, or at the very least repulsive, the laughter is born from the cruelty of the stories and the stretching of certain situations. But we also feel other emotions: dread, surprise, tension. Let’s cite, for example, one of the most beautiful sequences of the show where one of the performers brings a large book. By opening this beautifully done book, she reveals to us, in the form of a pop-up painting, a house. Each page turned brings us a little closer to this dwelling represented in pastel tones. Except that the softness of the illustration and the beautiful craftsmanship of the whole reveal a terrible and chilling off-screen: as she is regarding to knock on the door, the actress suspends her gesture while cries resound – those of a violent argument and beatings – taking place in the house.
We grasp in this scene what characterizes this show as a whole: a way of pushing each story to its limits and closing it on a perpetual reversal of the situation (and, therefore, of the emotions). Performed with impeccable mastery by the three performers – who not content to be manipulative also turn out to be impeccable actresses – The Grand Death of the Puppets, Variations seduced by his lively writing, his art of short storytelling, his ability to take us from one universe to another and his taste for cruelty. If one or two sequences turn out to be a little below the others – but that’s the game of such writing – the show also fascinates through its play with the discipline of puppetry. The puppet, an inert object to which the manipulator usually gives life, continues here to walk towards death. With a consummate art of black humour, the trio on stage transmits to us the power of this paradoxical gesture.
Caroline Châtelet – www.sceneweb.fr
The Grand Death of the Puppets, Variations
de The Old Trout Puppet Workshop
Mise en scène Peter Balkwill, Pityu Kenderes, Judd Palmer
Avec Louisa Ashton, Aya Nakamura, Teele Ustani
Costumes Jen Gareau
Music Mike Rinaldi
Light Amelia NewbertDuration: 1h05
Festival Off d’Avignon 2022
Girasole Theater
July 7 to 28, at 10:25 a.m.
