The New Toy Theatre - #1: Oral Toy Theatre

Witnessing the works being showcased at the Great Small Works festival allows one to observe and reflect on the new directions these brave and reckless young creators of the future are marching in. How is the multi-disciplinary, fronteir-less attitude of today's artists integrating into this Victorian performance tradition? Several contributors to the festival program offer potential answers to my question, starting with..........

#1 Oral Toy Theatre (Puppetyranny)



I thought I had escaped from the excesses of toy theatre when I sneaked off to Brooklyn Bridge Park one balmy afternoon during the festival, but oh no, there on a park bench were Leslie Rogers and Zac Palladino of Philadelphia-based company Puppetyranny, using toy theatre techniques to promote the the inside of the mouth as a new performance environment. In the ancient Chinese visual storytelling tradition, after all, the term 'pien' is used, meaning "transformation", and how else could you describe what happens to the garlic clove which enters Puppetyranny's toy theatre as a pearly-white bulb and exits as a lumpy mush, to be spread onto an oatcake and offered out to the audience? This toy theatre is indeed a place of transformation in which ideas meet, sometimes fight against each other, but other times conjoin, undergoing a process which sends them out on their way as something altogether new.

Oral toy theatre. Anthropologists will one day manage to unearth the missing manuscript detailing this obscure aspect of the world's visual storytelling history. In the meantime, Puppetyranny are doing a good job of reviving the tradition.

A Night at the Museum

It is late evening. We stand in a dark, cavernous warehouse space smelling ever so faintly of the spices it once used to contain. Dissecting this black grotto tall, elegant triangular shapes like the peach-tinted sails of three dozen ships - made from muslin stretched over bamboo frame - hang motionlessly in the abyss. The central pagoda invites the eye like the sumptuous centre-piece of a tropical garden. And as far as the eye can see, on dainty plinths of various sizes and heights, stands the most bewildering assortment of what at first glance could be jewel-encrusted shrines, fantastical dolls' houses or perhaps the miniature scenes you find trapped inside clear plastic cases surrounded by water and fake miniature snowflakes. But actually what surround you are the creative responses of a new generation of people making toy theatre - some trained in fine art, theatre, puppetry, poetry or music, others trained in nothing at all. Standing alongside carefully preserved examples of original toy theatres, the total collection that presents itself to a visitor to the Great Small Works Toy Theatre Museum suggests the revival of an undeniably flexible medium offering unimaginable possibilities to the curious 21st century artist.

Each artwork illuminated on its little plinth in the spice-scented darkness of the warehouse, it is evident that using this Victorian craft tradition as a basis has given a new generation of individuals the licence to create within a whole new disciplinary framework. In these 'theatres' references to the Victorian tradition are juxtaposed with experimental twists on scale, materials, design and use of imagery. In short, the toy theatres presented here still serve exactly the same purpose as they did over a century ago - to enable the maker to create their very own self-imagined, self-designed and self-made performance realm within which to play out their dreams and vent their frustrations - with the difference being that today's toy theatre makers benefit from an endless palette of new influences from the post-modern cultural cocktail that is the world today, which they are free to add into the mix.
Some speaking of the world today, others of a bygone time, but all relying on the same theatrical portal, each of the works in this space stands out as unique.

Great Small Works Miniature Procession

At Great Small Works it's all about the power of the miniature overcoming greater, more dominant forces - and as a fitting event to open a festival of miniature theatre performances, Sunday 30th May saw a procession of miniature floats weave their way through the streets of the DUMBO district of Brooklyn, accompanied by a New Orleans-style brass band. A myriad number of individuals ranging from children to the elderly, established artists to untrained creatives, arrived at Brooklyn Bridge Park under the Manhatten Bridge to unveil their shoebox-sized creations, and the artistry, individuality and beauty of these four-wheeled floats was staggering.
Great Small Works stress that an intrinsic aspect of the toy theatre medium as an empowering 'art form for the people' is the fact that anyone can make one. The miniature procession which led up to the ribbon-cutting ceremony at St Ann's Warehouse, then, was a celebration of the self-made movement.



Floats congregate in Brooklyn Bridge Park.



The procession weaves its way through the warehouses of DUMBO.



A newly married couple get caught up in the trumpeting frenzy outside St Ann's Warehouse.



The brass band, featuring navy blue-clad John Bell, leads the crowd into St Ann's Warehouse.




And now a selection of floats in close-up....

Stephen Kaplin

Of all the Great Small Works company members the one I have spent most quality time with is Stephen Kaplin, with whom I spent the better part of two weeks painting and stencilling hangings for the festival whilst listening to his excellent eclectic music collection.
Stephen has led an extremely rich life in the realm of puppetry - he started off by studying it as a degree subject at the University of Connecticut. Stephen credits the 1980 UNIMA Congress and World Puppetry Festival in Washington DC for setting his journey in motion - fresh out of his degree it brought him into contact with many puppeteers with whom he would later work, including Julie Taymor and the Bread and Puppet Theatre.
It was with the Bread and Puppet Theatre that Stephen established the artistic connections eventually leading to the creation of Great Small Works and his other company, Chinese Theatre Works, which he formed with his wife, Kuang-Yu Fong. Chinese Theatre Works attempts to 'preserve and promote traditional Chinese performing arts and create original works that bridge traditional and contemporary, Eastern and Western theatre aesthetics and practices.' I went to see one of Stephen and Juang-Yu's performances for Chinese visitors at PACE University, and was fascinated to watch a full length shadow puppetry performance using puppets manipulated horizontally on an illuminated projector screen. With aesthetically traditional puppets and quirky, contemporary narration provided by Stephen, this was definately Chinese shadow puppetry being injected with a fresh approach.

the Toy Theatre Arrivals Lounge

One of the most exciting periods of the festival so far was definately the day that several empty tables in St Ann's Warehouse began to be filled with mysterious packages to be opened by willing volunteers. Yes, we had been assigned the task of unpacking toy theatres that had been posted and delivered from all over the world, to go into the festival's Toy Theatre Museum.









I was given responsibility for a large, flat box from the Ballard Institute of Puppetry. Within it, wrapped in delicate protective paper sheets which certainly looked as old as the objects they contained, were the components of an original Dutch toy theatre, including endless varieties of rods, stands and clips, and a choice of two theatrical settings complete with different layers of scenery and characters. Hmm, New York cityscape in pastel shades or dark, broody Netherlandic winter scene complete with enigmatic cloaked gentlemen? I opted for the latter.