Process and Style

Our version of The Winter’s Tale came about through a successful collective working process with our group of designers and actors, who brought the intricacy of both script and puppetry into beautiful harmony. The cast directed from within, with a directorial consultant helping to streamline the transitions at the end.

Can we present Shakespeare with puppets, we wondered? Can they express such profound emotions, and tell such epic stories? We were amazed at how ideally the puppets lent themselves to this tale. Their small size and simplified gestures were able to contain the high stakes and make the emotions bearable. Alternating between human and puppet scale offered possibilities for intensifying power discrepancies. Most of all the medium offered possibilities for the transformations that infuse in this magical play.

Working with the two layers of actors and puppets presented many opportunities to enhance the poignancy and the magic of scenes. The faces for puppets of the principle characters were sculpted as portraits of the actors playing the roles. This created an interesting possibility: at times, the while puppet engaged with the other puppets, the puppeteer would turn aside (in Shakespeare’s “asides”) and speak what they were really thinking, or struggling with. This was particularly “useful” as Leontes wrestled with his own conscience and with conflicting emotions.

Another way in which we experimented with the presence of both puppets and live actors was in the scene in which the King Leontes brought his wife Hermione to public trial. It was chilling to see the contrast between the life-size hence gigantic king, as the miniature queen stood before him stripped of her royalty, while at the same time the clarity of her intent and intent was seen to reduce the king to tears.

The “clowns” in the story, the old Shepherd who adopted the lost princess Perdita and his son her brother, were another kind of puppet altogether, with the head of the actor and feet strapped to their middle giving them a troll-like stature. This allowed the actors familiarity with the audience, seated in the midst of the spring sheep-shearing (where three small children as sheep were sheared of their coats). These “rustics” were in sharp comparison with the royal puppets who came to the rustic wedding, and with the disguised prince and lost princess in their midst. 

The Winter’s Tale takes place in a formal urban court and at a rough rural gathering; the two settings (simply transformed with the use of available materials, found objects and scenic painting) gave us this contrast. Our production was created by a collection of both urban and rural artists, bringing together the influences of the two realities.  Just as the play is situated in two time periods and two places, we were able to remount the production, which began in the country, to the Belfry Theatre in Victoria, BC.

The first production, in Grindrod, Runaway Moon had rave reviews, and we were completely won over with the notion of presenting Shakespeare (and possibly other classical drama) with puppets! The puppets made the story so clear and engaging, with the puppets’ actions amplifying the events, that even children of five sat enthralled. The play was performed in two spaces perfectly suited to the story, 

At the Belfry Theatre’s Spring Festival in 2006, all 11 performances were sold out, and many who wanted to see it were unable to get seats. We have been told that people still talk about it.