What's The Name Of The King's Wife Again...?

Puppetry: ancient, tribal artform or creepy scarecrow fingered demon spawn?

Tonight, we worked with Les and some of the puppets he brought in. We were split into two groups and each group was given a story from the....I can't remember what it's called....ancient Indian legend....The Rama-llama-ding-dong....or something like that. I was having such a hard time moving the puppet around, that I couldn't keep the storylines, and Indian names, and plot points together in my mind. The technique is sort of like chopsticks. Reverse chopsticks. I played The King's Fourth And Youngest Wife. Jenn (who had no time for this exercise) played The King. Tilana (I may have her name wrong - haha - not only can I not remember the names of all these Hindu gods and princes and devils - I can't remember my own cast's names) played The Evil Witch Who Is Also A Maid, and Sarah (easy name to remember) played Prince Rama (also easy to remember).

The puppet is a lot harder to move than I thought it would be - so, I was a little frustrated that I had to perform this Rama legend when my puppet moved like it had some disease.Tilana moved her puppet really well - but she was into her puppet's performance to such a level that she had no time to answer any of my questions about how she was able to be so fluid - she was too busy being Witchy. But it was still interesting -- the other group did a really good job with their legend (something about a Fire God and a Monkey God and Rama again and Rama's Wife and Rama's Brother, and I think Lady Elaine from The Land Of Make Believe)

Good news. No rehearsal tomorrow, so I will be able to go see the preview of Everyman at Mad Cow. I'm very excited about it. We don't rehearse again until Saturday and Sunday.

Back to the fine art of puppetry for a second -- the good news is that Les let John borrow the puppets and we'll get a chance test drive them more this weekend. A lot of people in the cast really took to them fast -- I feel like I need to play catch up.