What was Citizen
Puppet about?
Puppet's telling the story of the English fairytale
"Jack and the Beanstalk" from their perspective.
What is Puppet
Verbatim?
It's the real words of actual puppets, edited together into
a script.
Why Jack and the
Beanstalk?
We discovered that a fairytale to a puppet, is like crime
watch to a human. Specifically, we explored Jack and the Beanstalk as a
possible metaphor for the banking crisis and for the environmental crisis.
What were the
inspirations behind the show?
Verbatim theatre, The Laramie Project, 999 (TV Show),
Documentaries such as 'Man on Wire' all came up during rehearsals
Who were the
characters?
Tina Henderson - Scottish Granny
Howie and Louie - Polish Jewish bankers
DI Clive - Puppet Police
Suki Armstrong Chan - Jack's girlfriend
Helen Shepherd - Jack's maths teacher
Terry Lynch - Spiritual guide
Daz Brayhew - Farmer
What were the
puppets like?
The puppets are like works of art. They have moving
mouths and expressive faces, and cloth bodies, with some fantastic costumes on.
What were the
puppets like to work with?
They are great fun to improvise and find characters with.
As they have moving mouths, they are more challenging to move around and at the
moment they can be done with one person as they are all sitting on puppet
chairs. This is challenging and freeing at the same time.
What was different
about it from other Blind Summit shows you have worked on?
The piece was a collaboration between students from the
Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, who had done very little puppetry
before, and the Blind Summit 'Table' ensemble.
Who was your
favourite puppet?
DI Clive
What was your
favourite moment of the show?
DI Clive talking about getting a shitsu after his wife
left him. Also the blackout at the beginning after Tina's opening monologue was
really exciting.
http://www.blindsummit.com/fionaclift.htm
