Reviews
THE ARTS FORUM: Puppetmaster crafts multi-media work
By: Richards, Constance E.
Posted: Aug. 8, 2003 4:36 p.m.ASHEVILLE - Melancholy is not a sentiment that sits well in this country. Melancholy is a hair away from sad, which is just a hair away from depressed. And for that . there's always a pill.
Puppetmaster Pamella O'Conner chooses to fly in the face of conventional and commercial advice and allows her characters to wallow freely in dejection and still come away the better for it, in the striking production "The Anatomy of Melancholy."
In doing so, O'Conner celebrates the aching beauty that melancholy can often engender.
In performance
What: "The Anatomy of Melancholy," a multi-media puppet theater production for adults
When/where: 8 p.m. Aug. 14, 15 and 16 at Diana Wortham Theater in Pack Place
Tickets: Cost $10 for the Thursday preview; $15 Friday- Saturday
Box office: 257-4530
Inspired by the eponymous 17th-century tome by philosopher Robert Burton that surveys "melancholy" in a myriad of forms from causes and symptoms to possible cures, O'Conner assigned the job of adapting the book to play form, to fellow former-Atlantan Jessica Klarp.Narrated by Asheville theater veteran Ralph Redpath, "The Anatomy of Melancholy" takes viewers on a journey of O'Conner's Everyman puppet's quest for self-fulfillment and wholeness.
His journey - a simple story really - is of trying to fill a hole in his belly that he discovers one morning. It is composed of visual metaphors that are supposed to strike at the very core of being human. The show is composed of a streamlined set, adroit puppeteers who manipulate both set and characters and a moving musical score. The combined effect creates the unique kind of theater one might expect to see in a basement black box theater in Prague or St. Petersburg. Yet here, it's accessible to all.
A work in progress
In April 2002, the play appeared as a "work in progress." Originally produced with a $3,000 grant from the North Carolina Arts Council, "The Anatomy of Melancholy" now features a streamlined script, high-tech projections and a chance for O'Conner to create "cleaner images." New scenes have been added, another taken out.
And images are the defining elements in O'Conner's puppet theater. A floating leaf, ripped from its food source, meanders to the ground to curl up and die. One brave flower opens its petals wide before a snow shower makes it wither and perish. While the characters don't say much, the images do, with every new prop appearing on stage infused with significance.
"Puppets are limited because they have no expression," says Klarp, writer of O'Conner's play. "Expression happens in the movements and allows for more possibilities. Sometimes just a simple action is all that's needed."
"And that," agrees O'Conner, "is why I did puppet theater. I was struck by the expression of puppets."
Both O'Conner and Klarp had a successful run as equity actors in Atlanta's theater scene in the 1980s, even appearing together in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and the rock opera "Tommy." But O'Conner found profound satisfaction in puppet theater when she was asked to be a voice for a puppet in a professional production at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. She toured with the troupe in Eastern Europe and found the world of puppet theater for adults alive and well.
In Asheville, she co-founded the Puppetry Alliance and has presented two children's productions. Now this.
Funding for completion of the piece this year has come from the Henson Foundation, the Puppeteers of America, the Asheville Area Arts Council and patrons. Representatives from these organizations, as well as Spoleto and the South East Center for the Contemporary Arts, will be on hand to view the performance. O'Conner hopes to take "Anatomy of Melancholy" and its Asheville cast out on tour.
Puppets, objects as actors
A production that tells a tale well is what it's all about. "Too many actors are driven by ego," O'Conner maintains. "Most puppeteers are about the story, and I've always been about the story."
One of the most complex and insightful moments occurs when puppets - a menagerie of wood, paper, metal, hinges, and joints - appear to take on human emotions with only the slightest manipulation.
"It asks the audience to give it value . emotional value," O'Conner says.
As playwright Klarp learned in the process, "Puppets convey so much in barely a movement."
Puppeteers dressed in black manipulate the 3-foot-tall puppets, paper mache-style figures painted to look like wood. The four puppeteers often interact with their charges, yet at other times, when stage direction calls for them to disappear into the background, they remain expressionless. Dance fans will recognize Yoko Myoi, who came back from New York especially for the performance. She manipulates the main character.
Many elements contribute to the visual feast. Puppets and the puppeteers that make them function are the actors. Objects - a red bouncing ball, a wooden bird, stacks of boxes - are all imbued with meaning such that they, too, become "actors" in this ode to melancholy.
Creative collaboration
The completed version of "Anatomy of Melancholy" has, as hoped, become much more than the original work in progress, says O'Conner. High-tech video projections by digital media innovator David McConville and mixed-media artist Nicole Tuggle complete the12-foot steel tower set designed by metal artist John Payne.
Artists of several disciplines - visual arts, dance, drama, literature - collaborate here in a demonstration of Asheville's creative muscle.
"When I moved back to Asheville several years ago, I wanted to do this kind of work," says media innovator David McConville, who had seen the work in progress last year just after buying partner Nicole Tuggle a 19th century printing of "The Anatomy of Melancholy" for her birthday.
"It was such a strong performance and Nicole and I agreed it would be cool to add projection components," he says. "As it was, Jessica and Pamella had written that into the script. We talked them out of using too many projections to distract. But rather the projections have a complementary role in the performance."
Ultimately, it's the kind of play that will leave the narrator's line, "Sometimes life just makes you sad," ringing in your ears, and knowing . that isn't always a bad thing.
Constance E. Richards writes about the arts for the Citizen- Times. Contact her at Schtanzi@aol.com or at Citizen-Times, P.O. Box 2090, Asheville, NC 28802.
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