Puppets - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 29

her i ngers round its mouth, as if the parrot were voicing Mary's inner feelings which she had to
suppress to keep up a respectable exterior.
Folly sticks
I wanted to develop the same relationship with Rigoletto and his folly stick, but it got
complicated. I had already given Rigoletto a crutch, remembering Anthony Sher's agility and
use of his crutches in the legendary Royal Shakespeare Company's 1984/1985 production of
Richard III, where they became instruments of seduction and violence, as well as suggesting
the imagery of a six-legged insect mentioned so often in the text. Rigoletto with a crutch and a
folly stick was getting messy. But a crutch that was also a folly stick …? I had marked the score
with the lines to be delivered by the folly stick, and had planned to echo Mary Poppins by
The original design of Rigoletto with his folly stick and crutch.
The fi nal version of Rigoletto.