Secret of Singbonga
I spent three weeks in India researching this show, and here are some of the fruits of my labor.
The challenges that I face are that the entire show needs to fit into a van, and be handled by two puppeteers. I also want to create the feel of India, but not an authentic Indian puppet show.
The director, Jodi Eichelberger, wanted to start with blank stage and create everything during the first scene. So I ground my teeth and pulled my hair a bit and came up with the idea of arcs. India art and architecture use lots of circles and arcs. Conviently fans collapse flat and expand to be arcs, so all of the set is based on this. We have three scenic locations. Heaven, the sarna (sacred grove of trees) and, the furnace. All three are made out of the 38 saris we bought in India.
We use the nagara drums as our playboards. At times the poor actors have to carry these 45 pound drums around and puppeteer at the same time. They don’t complain too much.
As you can see, when we go to heaven, the rest of the set collapes down out of the way. The costumes the puppeteers are wearing are hand-woven and based on India dress. We chose not to go with standard puppeteer blacks for two reasons. We wanted them to be distinctivly Indian costumes. We incoorporate indian dance movements into the transitions and did not want to mute the presence of the performers. Besides, with a puppet and a 45 pound drum in front of them, who’ll notice the puppeteer?
Singbonga’s mask is based on Purulian Chhou. Although this one is now made mostly of scrim to allow the actor to have decent vision.
Posted by Mary Robinette Kowal |