Widening the Scope - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 317

15

Widening the
Scope

Animation in a bubble
I have had my share of being ribbed for my reasonably conservative cultural ambitions and
pretensions. That's confused me, as I assumed that animation belongs with the other arts,
where innovation, imagination and the like are applauded and encouraged, but for many
people it does not. It does for me, and I know it can and should. I want to burst the bubble that
separates animation from the other arts. Nothing would please me more than to work with
leading designers, composers, choreographers or writers, but on the rare occasion where I've
been in such company, the conversation stops dead. Some do not understand that our skills
are much the same but applied dif erently, although more slowly. We're sometimes looked on
as a quaint cottage industry. We're not. Any cross-over has to be benei cial to us both. The look
of incomprehension as I asked a respected theatre company about directing was priceless, and
yet they employ people with less experience. I'll admit to admiration coloured with jealousy of
animators who have crossed over, such as the brilliant Brothers Quay. Their stage productions
have left me dazzled, excited and energised many a time, as do their animated i lms.

My eureka moment was the Royal Shakespeare Company's nine-hour Nicholas Nickleby in 1980.
Seeing this, I became aware of great direction, great storytelling, and the unrivalled thrill of the
relationship between an audience and the cast. Nickleby was also the i rst production I'd seen
where the focus was on the performer as storyteller. It wasn't about pretty sets and costumes,
but about the performer sharing an imagination with the audience. I was never the same after
this production. True, the stage wasn't genuinely bare, and the hundreds of costumes were
splendid, but it was the rawness of the cast using their bodies as the narrative and set that was
so powerful. One minute they conjured up the image of a stagecoach, the next they grouped
as if round a gambling table, and then they were walls closing in on Ralph Nickleby, all just
using no more than their bodies. One of the i nal scenes, and probably the most emotionally
shattering I shall ever witness, was poor Smike's death. Just Nickleby and Smike alone on stage,
both actors far from their teens, and Smike too tall and substantial for a malnourished boy, but
none of this mattered. The performances were so utterly convincing that we saw all we needed
to see, and I was reduced to tears, feeling an intruder in such a heartbreaking scene. Ever since
I've been a sucker for a performer standing alone on a practically empty stage; certainly I love
spectacle and great design, but somehow the whole experience is more satisfying when you
have to i ll in a lot of the details. It seems as though you are participating with the actor rather
than watching him. An awful cliché, but you are sharing something. Spectacle can become