Every show - one hopes - tells a story. But behind every story, there is a process that often remains completely invisible to the audience. It is a process that takes an idea from its nascent stages into fully-lit, fully-executed stagecraft. On a recent Saturday afternoon, Puca Puppets allowed an invited audience to see their method by staging a work-in-progress presentation and, like any matinee, a healthy representation of the older set attended. Unlike the typical theatrical matinee, however, this group had an investment in the work at hand.
First, though, a word about puppetry. The form is not very popular in Ireland outside the over eight-year-old circle. While the Lambert Puppet Theatre is a highly venerated institution, and does sponsor an international puppet festival in the autumn, the idea of the use of puppets in "grown up" theatre has not taken hold - although in recent years the Dublin Theatre Festival has introduced the form.
During almost five years, Puca principals Helena Huegel and Niamh Lawlor have played mostly to children with great success. One might point to their work with Barabbas at Expo 2000 as a transition towards a broader demographic base. In any event, their latest work, Mary Mary's Last Dance, aims to operate on many levels. The conceptual perfection of the piece - using the frame of what is often perceived to be a childish art in conjunction with an elderly character who has become quite childlike - is the strongest argument for its appeal to adults.
The story is that of a vibrant 85-year-old woman's final night on Earth. Her memories spark to life as, in her weariness, she lets down her defences and allows images and regrets, as well as fragments of song and dance, back into her consciousness for the last time. As performed by a human this might create a rather morbid picture, but the use of the puppet brings not only a lightness to the proceedings, but also creates a larger range of action and movement.
In order to flesh out Mary Mary's biography, Huegel and Lawlor enlisted the help of the Irish Museum of Modern Art and Saint Michael's Parish Active Retirement Arts Group. Having worked on the piece, primarily through devising, the puppeteers began to question whether or not they were representing the age group appropriately. "I've worked in the museum as an artist," says Lawlor, "and through that connection I asked if it would be all right for me to meet with the group and ask their advice, because they're closer in age to the puppet than we are."
Lawlor and the show's director, Leticia Agudo, visited the group during their weekly session at IMMA. "Mary Mary had a chat with them, and we asked them to imagine who she was and what her background was like," explains Lawlor. "We didn't tell them very much at all, we just gave them a little glimpse of her character. What was heartening about it was that so many of them chose histories for her that were quite close to what we had imagined for her ourselves."
Feedback took the form of interaction between group members and the puppet, through song and story, and several of them took the opportunity to operate the puppet themselves. Puca also received letters from the women; one suggested making a dress out of one of Mary Mary's many plastic carrier bags, and the company incorporated this notion into a dream sequence. The woman responsible "was thrilled. During the show, she nudged her neighbour and said, `that's my idea!' " says Huegel.
"Even just the encouragement they're giving us is important - and for me to have met a group of people like them who really are full of life. It's not an ideal or a cliche I'm making up; they're just fantastic! I'm sure her character has learned from them. I'm sure it has rubbed off," adds Lawlor.
When the two talk about Mary Mary, it is with the respect shown towards a colleague, not an inanimate object. They always speak of "she" never "it", and the fondness they have for her is evident, as they repeatedly glance in her direction whenever her name comes up.
Watching the two operate the puppet during the show is like watching a glass artist create a delicate bowl or dancers perform a pas de deux (or in this case trois). Gentility and patience are involved, and as the style employed is Bunraku - the Japanese technique in which the operators are on full view - at times Huegel and Lawlor seem to be as much operated by the puppet as they are responsible for bringing her to life.
And come to life she does, with Lawlor going as far as to say, "I'm convinced that she made herself! She was a demonstration model for a workshop, for teaching careworkers how to make puppets for children. This character was made by accident, it wasn't that we came up with a character and made a puppet and then made a show."
"But what provoked the head actually getting a body? She didn't have a body for the workshop, did she?" asks Huegel, as she tries to sort out the progression of events.
"No, no, she didn't. As I made the head, I had this creative diversion. I was trying to make her ears, and as I was trying, instead of making them, I wrote something about ears, a kind of quirky thing called Song to a Pair of Ears, a love song to someone, all about their ears. That became her first cabaret piece. And then she needed a body to perform, and her body followed."
The cabaret night of puppetry organised under the umbrella of Unima Ireland (Union Internationale de la Marionette) was Mary Mary's first outing; her major debut will come in Project Cube this week. Along the way, she has travelled with Huegel, Agudo and Lawlor to the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig for an intensive, two-week devising session, during which time the bulk of the script was composed. Then came the pivotal meetings with Saint Michael's Art Group, and, they hope, the rest will not be history.
If the process itself is any indication, the two years that the puppeteers put into the work is about to pay off. "I think it's going to be possible for us to really enjoy performing this show," says Lawlor.
Mary Mary's Last Dance opens at the Project Cube, Dublin on April 18th, with previews tonight and tomorrow, 8 p.m. Booking at: 1850-260027.
