This week I was at Dartmouth.  I stayed with friends in the area almost all week.  I had a hotel room for two nights.

This was an interesting show.  For all the denigration puppetry usually gets from less refined stagehands, the Handspring Puppet Company from South Africa are truly amazing.

From the first day of rehearsals I was riveted by the characters (read: puppets).  I was drawn in to the story by these intense and amazing characters.

Their mouths didn’t move but that wasn’t a problem after only a few seconds.

Normally this play has three acts, but the author had only written two.  Other people have staged this play and written a third act.  William and Basil didn’t do that.  They end the play at the point of the original script, after Woyzeck murders his wife from his madness.

The puppets had so much pathos and emotion you couldn’t help be absorbed by poor Woyzeck’s misery.

The strangest part was when the director, Bruce, would call for a halt in the rehearsal and the ‘actors’ would seem to fall over backwards and lay down.  Then heads would pop up of the manipulators to take notes. It was very odd to see these actors acting their hearts out only to pass out and fall over backwards when Bruce would say, “Alright, let’s stop there.” on the Voice Of God Mic.  The first couple of times I almost jumped up and ran to the stage to see what was the matter!

We also had a lecture on Wednesday, and Handpsring included their introspective on puppetry ‘I Love You When You’re Breathing‘.  The main, darkhaired manupulator was the guy who came to do this show, they had two Woyzeck guys do the arm and feet.  This was a really interesting analysis about puppetry and each audience member’s being an author of the story by projecting themselves onto the blank puppet slate.

Once during this rehearsal, when Bruce said stop, the puppet turned to look out at the tech table, just as a human actor would do.  And then the puppet passed out and lay over backwards…  I saw this puppet later, laying down on a road case backstage.  It looked like a guy in a suit just laying there, relaxing.

If you ever get a chance to see anything Handspring, do it!