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performance, unable to stop themselves echoing the puppet on their arm. The skill and
dexterity were astonishing, but the concentration on just the face and not the whole body
stopped me totally loving these puppets.
The show's directness could not be achieved with stop motion. There is no way we could
animate anything to an acceptable standard and then broadcast it within a matter or days, let
alone hours. If we did, it could only be for a matter of seconds. This immediacy is one of the
things that I miss about stop motion. It is a continual struggle to achieve any form of here and
now about animation, but then maybe that is one of its strengths, in giving it an undeniable
timeless feel.
The Turn of the Screw
I recently directed Henry James' The Turn of the Screw , using puppets resembling some of
the characters and manipulated by the children, Miles and Flora, to suggest the horrors they
witnessed but could not articulate. This is a gloriously enigmatic piece that does not provide
answers, referring obliquely to the demise of the previous governess. Our children innocently
played with the puppets, but only as the back-story of Miss Jessel and Quint began to spill out
did the audience realise the children were acting out the torrid back-story, and that the same
fate might befall the new governess. Our unsettled audiences watched these children playing
unpleasant games with the puppets, with an uncomfortable recognition. Most satisfyingly to
me were the gasps as the children suggested Quint and Miss Jessel's af air, before dramatically
but rather casually drowning the puppets in a toy sea of silver fabric.
Holly and Adam as Miles and Flora being beastly to the puppets in The Turn of the Screw .
Most of the sex and violence was in the audience's mind, as I had left it vague when directing
the children, but I was thrilled that the audience gave life and resonances to
these simple puppets, only to have that life destroyed with a bump. Children
operating and, in ef ect, abusing these puppets discomforted the audience,
perhaps revealing their own rather eager imagination. ' Screw ' deals with ideas of
manipulation and suggestion, but through using puppets I could take these ideas
and make the audience question who was manipulating who with a clear visual
metaphor. Not having watched any previous productions I assumed I was being
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