The Mind Creative March 2014
There is an emerging interest internationally for actor based theatre
to incorporate puppetry into their plays. This influenced the theme
of the 4th National Puppetry and Animatronics Summit (2012) which
was “Puppetry – Centre Stage where it belongs”. In the last 2 years
the Australian stage has seen some remarkable puppetry - “War
Horse” created by the National Theatre (London) with puppets by
Handspring (South Africa) and the home grown, production of “King
Kong – Live on Stage” (Global Creatures and Creature Technology).
Mask and Puppets
From Snuff Puppets
Photo: George de Araujo
In both shows puppets took the leading roles. The horses and the
6 metre high gorilla were not anthropomorphised (taking on the
characteristics of humans). Each production took a great deal of
time in rehearsal to stay true to the nature of the creatures but the
designs did not attempt to be naturalistic. Also in 2013, the Sydney
Theatre Company used beautiful puppets created by AboutFace
Productions (Melbourne) in its production of “Storm Boy”.
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