Gory, scary fairytales

Shadow puppet theatre by Russian Centre School of Drama:

Angu RAJENDRAN

Delightful! A lovely rendition of well- known children’s stories through shadow puppet theatre! The Russian Centre School of Theatre and Drama had put up for the first time in Sri Lanka ‘Shadow puppet theatre’ by children, for children, in the Russian centre auditorium. The age group of the kids working the puppets was between 8 to 14 years.

It proved to be a lovely evening for the kids both in the audience and those manning the puppets. The stories were Roald Dahl’s version of the Three Little Pigs, Cinderella and Jack and the beanstalk. Quite different from the usual sappy ‘happily ever after’ endings! As the young narrator explained ‘this version is gorier, scarier and more like what we would all really like the stories to be.’

For today’s child – lover of horror stories, this version especially played out in the dark was most exciting. Just for half an hour kids reveled at Roald Dahl’s horrific version of fairytales played out with puppets. In the story the Three Little Pigs, the Third pig calls Red Riding Hood to handle the Big Bad Wolf and she comes over with a gun, shoots the wolf and the Third pig and gives the moral of the story as ‘don’t trust anyone who shoots animals.’

In the story Cinderella, after Cindy refuses to marry the Prince, she falls for him in a disco and the shadow kiss in the valentine thrilled the audience. And in the Jack and the Beanstalk story, Jack is relieved when his bossy mother is eaten up by the Giant.

Puppets were made with corrugated board with the moving parts nailed together with nuts and screws. Ingeniously simple! As Aroshe Ranasinghe the director of the plays put it.

‘We spent many sessions when the kids themselves drew Jack and his mum, the ugly sisters, the Big Bad wolf and all the other puppets’. They also helped her cut and nail the parts together.

When she saw how much they were enjoying the puppet making process, she says ‘I gave up being worried whether they would hammer their fingers or cut themselves. After all, they would never ever get a chance like this to actually saw and hammer away. It was an experience that they needed in life.

I let them enjoy it without the constant ‘be careful s’ accompanying their hard work’. And work they did.

Together with Aroshe they had made over 25 puppets and all of them with moving parts, to make them look as if they were really talking. One even had a bathtub with Jack scrubbing himself with a back brush. Cleverly made puppets! With a powerful reading lamp and a paper thin screen, they created their own puppet theatre. When the hall lights were switched off and the reading lamp was switched on, the kids used the shadows of their puppets on the screen and gave their voices to the puppets.

The appropriate music like the pink panther music whenever the Big Bad Wolf appeared was a theatrical touch to a very good production.

As Aroshe says, ‘I wanted them to learn what it was like to not really hog the limelight and be a star on stage. They had to perform through another medium. Very much like animated films when stars loan their voices to characters.

However, in this case the kids had to manipulate the puppets at the same time. As Ms Ranasinghe herself wonders at the potential of kids, “it was simply amazing to see them crawl around on the stage, on their haunches and make the beanstalk grow bigger by simply bringing the puppet closer to the light so that the shadow could grow larger. Kids have such fantastic abilities if only we believe in them,” Aroshe says.

Why did she choose something as different as shadow puppet theatre for her students to perform? “I realised that kids love to be on stage. They love to become some other character if only for a while. They respond hugely to audience reaction to them.

I just wanted to see how they would perform under conditions when they cannot see the audience at all, more so, when the audience cannot even see them. And I must say that they came out with flying colours. They took to making the puppets act for them, like fish to water.

Their voices gave the emotions that the inanimate puppets had to show. And they did it effortlessly. I am so proud of my team of little puppeteers. Now I know it is not just the stage that is important to my students but even behind the stage is as important. In my eyes, they are real stars now. They had to practice so hard to manipulate the puppets and use their voices.

To crawl about the stage to make the puppets grow and shrink.

The team work was amazing as they handed puppets to each other. And most of all, the way they explained the usage of puppets to the large number of kids in the audience after the show, just goes to show that they are so willing to share what they learn. Kids are marvelous.

As adults we just have to learn to tap their potential.”

Here is a group of kids that proves that the new generation X, Y or Z is just about the most creative, enthusiastic and hardworking of them all. All they need is a supportive adult to encourage and guide them.