I talk to Rich about the puppets in the show.
“This process has been unlike any we have undertaken” says Rich. “The whole thing seems backwards and yet totally right for this show.”
With most of Romeo and Juliet blocked and run the company now has three months away from each other. Edinburgh Fringe projects, set building, costume making, puppet making and even the birth of a baby to one of the performers all happen now. Then everyone comes together again for a period of rehearsal before the show opens on September 19th.
Dave: How has this timescale effected the process?
Rich: “It has totally dictated it.”
Dave: So how did you start?
Rich: “It started with an idea, then a few meetings then once we knew it was the right thing to do, the fun bit started. Drawings, reading the text a hundred times, cutting it, reading it again. Casting, employing the likes of Max (Puppets) and Dom (Music) and Rhys (Design). Sarah (Producer) orchestrated all of the logistics and I was able to really think about how best to make this project as exciting as the people who were involved in making it.”
Dave: Puppets are important in this project, can you talk about how they go from nothing to finished?
Rich: “Wow, that’s a massive question Dave. There isn’t an exact science here. I have made a lot of pretty shoddy puppets out of paper mache and bits of material in the past. I had never had the budget to employ a specialist before and that was very exciting. Max is brilliant, not only at making the puppets in his workshop with his team. Max is a brilliant member of the creative team. His knowledge base is huge, his reference library is astonishing and he takes his work very seriously which is perfect for us. Most of all he, like the rest of the creative team, gets very excited about the work and the potential of it- that drives the project forward.
I had an early meeting with Max where I embarrassingly showed him a picture of the Nurse, he dismissed it almost instantly as being too panto (which I kinda new) ’We can do much better’ he told me with a smile. And he was right. But my drawing was all we had when we didn’t have any finished puppets and from my sketch I was able to show the performers in a very early R+D what I was thinking about.
For me, there is no point in spending money on a puppet before you know that the theory works. So what we did was make a little Nurse out of scarves and a fleecy jacket, we made wings from a cereal box. Only when I saw that was I then confident to say ’Max, this little lady is going to work, now it’s over to you’. This is a very exciting moment.
Max then started sketching everything, working out how it might all work. Then we had a brilliant meeting with the designer Rhys, to work out scales, how they would look together, how many operators would be needed for each puppet. Max is in charge of the overall look and his relationship with Max is key. I think they work great together!
Rhys’ job was to bring the whole show together, he worked with me on the concept- we wanted everything to make complete sense to us and to the performers- but Rhys was able to see it objectively and ask the right questions. He saw the show in ways I had never seen and that was very exciting. It was Rhys who was keen on the floor, the full set was his way of binding the style. It was Rhys who really connected with the universe as an oppressive feature of the show, the relationship the characters have with the stars is now all over the design. And now that we had some rules those rules could then be applied to Max’s designs. Everything came together.
So by the main chunk of our R+D we had versions of all the puppets, we could rehearse and make them work. But we didn’t have anyone costumed and only two of the puppets were painted, so this meant that the company could play and learn and adapt the puppets a little bit to suit them.
For me the devising started in theory before we even had a cast. We were creating the show, developing the rules of the world we were creating as we went along over the phone, through email and over coffee. This is new for me. This isn’t the same as sending a design to the builder before we know exactly what we need. The set adapted throughout the rehearsal process because it only excited on Rhys Mac. The set and costume and puppets were as adaptable as the action, everything can change at any time to serve the project.”
Dave: So where are you now?
Rich: “Now it’s over to Max again. Its over to him to dress and paint everything. The next time the cast see the puppets they will move exactly the same way but they will be beautiful! We had the friar made quite late on and all we have to go by (in terms of the finish) is one drawing that Max sent through, but it’s left everyone very excited to see these characters dressed.”
Dave: What have you learned about puppets?
Rich: “Ultimately I have learned that Max is the best puppet maker I have ever met, he is a designer, artist, craftsman and enthusiast in a way that I could only have dreamed of when I started to look for the right man for this task. If you are looking for a puppet maker, he’s your man.
Combined with Rhys patience, vision and huge wealth of experience and resource at this stage of the process I couldn’t ask for more.”
Dave: Wow, that was a lot more than I was looking for…
Rich: “Well, I just really think that people overlook the amount of compromise, co-operation and creativity that happen through the design team. Ours is a tiny scale compared to some amazing huge productions- but everyone in our team has a voice. Audiences see a puppet and go ’I don’t like it’ or ’it’s really great’- but I think puppet making is a beautiful, complex and dying art form, a skill which is as precise if not more than physical theatre, dance on anything you see on stage. Puppet workshops are rare place these days. Little Angel have a workshop filled with magic, as do a few other little theatres but if we want puppetry to stay an art form and not just a cheap way of getting audiences excited about opera and panto it’s people like Max that should be given more of a say. Its also important to say that theatre is changing and I think that the best puppet makers out there are going to have to change and adapt with the times, I hope Romeo and Juliet will be an example of that… I hope…”
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