Ouroboros

First, I’ll concentrate on my RI. IT’S DONE. OVER. FINISHED. I won’t lie and say I’m not relieved it’s over, because I am. Very much so.  ON Thursday, we handed in our final drafts, after some last verbal feedback from Mr. F, who was (for our own good) being the pickiest person alive. Nevertheless, I feel that the RI has taught me a lot about researching a particular subject. What was especially interesting was that the subject was completely new to me, meaning I had to do extra research just to understand the subject (in occurrence, Japanese Noh Theatre). As well as teaching me about research, this benefitted me as an IB theatre student in that during the research and writing stage of my RI, I was able to draw up comparisons between the theatre I was studying and the Theatre I had studied, leading me to a better understanding of Theatre in global terms. 

However, this was only the minor story of the week. We also went to see Ouroboros, the new production by the Handspring Puppet Company, made world famous by their West End hit, War Horse. This play was interesting, to say the least. This piece focused on telling its story through the movement of the puppets. AS such, it had no dialogue, except for a narrator reciting the poem ‘Aristotle’ by Billy Collins. It told the story of life, its beginning, middle and end. The play’s story was that of a love story between poet Andre and dancer Nokobonisa. However, both struggle with commitment due to unresolved childhood issues. Andre watched his parents’ marriage dissolve as a young boy whilst Nokobonisa lost a person she loved dearly when she was just a child as well.  AS they try and build a relationship, their tormented souls (shown in the play by smaller puppets representing Andre and Nokobonisa as children) try and stop them in order to protect them. For me, what made it particularly emotive was the realism displayed by the puppets movements. In particular, the scene where a young Andre plays with his toys was very evocative as it reminded of my own childhood.

In our lesson on Friday (the show had been on Thursday night) Mr. F asked us to think of three words to sum up our feelings in the play. After class discussion, my final three words were surreal, truthful and coordination. Surreal because the puppets and what they represented transcended the medium of stage and were real. I called it a “painting come alive” because that’s the only way I could describe it. Truthful because the message was timeless, universal. A similar sort of message can be found in Charlie Chaplin’s “the Great Dictator”. Something that can be relevant anywhere, anytime. Coordination simply because of the effort and teamwork shown by the puppeteers. With three puppeteers per puppet, it was obvious that it was tiring and hard work yet the puppets only seemed all the more real for that. This was just my opinion, my interpretation of the play. Yet this play has many interpretations. Like “Oh the Humanity” that we saw last October, “Ouroboros” was trying to show its message to anyone who would hear, and everyone came out with a different idea of what the play meant. This has shown me as a theatre student that some plays have dual messages. One is universal, for everyone to grasp and understand. The other is at a much more personal level; every person takes back something different from this play, something to mull over on the drive home.

However, the highlight of the evening came after the play. Mr. F arranged for us to meet three of the cast, or the three actresses in charge of the Nokobonisa character. This means three puppets, with a different head puppeteer for each. This hierarchy is essential because it means that the actors (actresses in this case) are always fully invested in the emotion of the character they’re representing. This is only one of the requirements that have to be fulfilled in a puppet. The acting system they use is called BERPI. However, as will soon become apparent, many of the skills needed in BERPI can be transposed into other styles of acting. In BERPI, the B stands for breath. There are two kinds of breaths in puppet theatre, stop-breaths and go-breaths. Much like their name states, they dictate when the action stops and starts. They are always performed by the head puppeteer. However, as well as informing the other puppeteers of what’s about to happen, they breathe life into the puppet by the style of breathing they use, like scared breathing. This extra degree of emotion really makes the puppet come alive. The E in BERPI stands for eye-line. Eye-line is vital in displaying the puppet as a real person. The puppet’s line of sight means it’s concentrating on something, which means it’s alive. The R stands for rhythm. The puppet must never be still. If its still, its dead. This can sometimes means difficult and awkward movements for the puppeteer, but as one of the puppeteers said in our meeting “the actor must die in order for the puppet to live”. The P stands for physics, or an awareness that puppets can only move in certain ways, so due care must be taken to make them seem real. Finally the I stands for intention. The puppets purpose defines its place in the play. All of these are vital to make a puppet become alive.