Date: Sun, 4 Oct 2009 22:34:57 -0700
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Nightingale in Toronto: Lepage and Curry


>But somehow it is assumed that because they are trained
>in their own fields, any one of them can pick up a puppet and be a great
>puppeteer without training in our field.

I sympathize with what's being said here, but "it is assumed" cuts a 
very wide swath.  I don't assume it, even though I've never in my 
life performed with a professional puppeteer or studied it formally. 
Yet I go ahead producing puppet theatre.  I would say that our work 
has a lot of deficiencies - including those I've outlined in a 
previous post - but theatre is the art of the possible.  If I didn't 
use untrained performers and my untrained self, and do my damndest to 
make it work, I just plain wouldn't be doing it.  Instead, I choose 
to do it.

As it is, I think we bring skills into the work that, for our 
audiences, make up for what may be lacking.  Right now with TEMPEST 
we're getting some pretty profound response.  Could it be better? 
Damn betcha, with a lot more of everything we don't have enough of.

But I feel I've been learning steadily since doing my first puppet 
piece in 1969 - by seeing good work & bad work, by film & video 
resources, by asking people questions & getting feedback, and by 
doing it - no different from the way I learned playwriting & 
sculpting & design & radio production & love-making - never got a 
degree in that, but some very positive reviews.  The one deadly sin, 
IMHO, is to stop learning, to stop pushing beyond your current level 
of achievement, to stop aspiring to the impossible.

At age 67 I may indeed never become a "great" puppeteer.  I would 
guess that lotsa students graduating from UConn or CalArts will never 
make it to "great" either.  But my only chance at it is to go ahead 
and pick up the next puppet.

Peace & joy-
Conrad B.
-- 
Visit our website at <http://www.independenteye.org> for
    our performance schedule, scripts & photo archives, books & CDs,
our radio series "Hitchhiking off the Map"
and
our weekly weblog on the creation of a live-animation TEMPEST for 2009

  ***

On our live performances:
"Lives revealed with intense clarity  through admirable, 
uncompromising acting." (Variety)  -  "A series of highly 
premeditated acts of imagination and intelligence."  (American 
Theatre)  -  "Achingly beautiful."  (Philadelphia City Paper)  - 
"Seasoned storytellers for the stage"  (The Washington Post)- 
"Funny, wise, richly detailed."  (Back Stage West)

***
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