The Way to the Way: Becoming a Turtle
Curt Bright
Author
03/03/2022
Added
283
Plays
Description
Actors slay themselves to puppets, bringing life to inanimate objects.
Searchable Transcript
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- [00:00:00.000](slow singing)
- [00:00:08.180]I haven't slept a wink, a wink!
- [00:00:11.470]Sounds like your "cicadian" rhythms' all out of whack.
- [00:00:16.086](laughs) Maybe bug.
- [00:00:18.050]This is the Way to the Way, it's taken
- [00:00:19.830]from a Chinese Taoist book called the Tao Te Ching.
- [00:00:23.490]You must fast your heart and silence your mind.
- [00:00:27.681]And it's a bunch of Chinese fairy tales kind of
- [00:00:30.370]tied together to form this magical world.
- [00:00:34.220]The way to the way.
- [00:00:35.950]I play turtle,
- [00:00:37.430]I am kind of the rock that moves throughout the story.
- [00:00:40.670]The story is how turtle wants to go to the ocean,
- [00:00:42.860]he's an ordinary field turtle.
- [00:00:45.109]If I was anyone, but a stupid field turtle.
- [00:00:47.450]I would've been to the scene back again by now.
- [00:00:49.530]So I'm wearing all black.
- [00:00:50.980]I'm in a black karate gi and a mask.
- [00:00:54.860]And I sit inside this, he kind of sits around my waist.
- [00:00:59.360]I use my right hand
- [00:01:00.360]and I can control his head
- [00:01:02.440]and I can control his mouth as well,
- [00:01:04.120]and then with my left hand, I'm moving his left arm
- [00:01:06.870]and I can blink with that hand as well.
- [00:01:08.890]One of the real big challenges
- [00:01:10.640]with the show is that the puppeteers actually
- [00:01:13.020]have to embody really large objects.
- [00:01:15.940]There's this concept in puppetry
- [00:01:18.240]and it's called "slaying yourself to the puppet".
- [00:01:20.680]And so what, what we try to do when we're working
- [00:01:23.330]with the puppeteers is we try to help them
- [00:01:25.670]feel what the character is feeling,
- [00:01:27.660]but then figure out how to transfer that
- [00:01:29.646]to that inanimate object.
- [00:01:31.740]You also work with the puppeteers to really bounce
- [00:01:36.780]around to different characters very, very quickly.
- [00:01:39.470]We have eight people in the cast
- [00:01:41.400]and they play multiple roles.
- [00:01:43.380]You're running from one character
- [00:01:44.880]to another, going back and forth,
- [00:01:46.910]and this cast, they have really embraced it,
- [00:01:49.530]they are giving themselves over to this object,
- [00:01:53.220]bringing it to life
- [00:01:54.600]and I think it's going to resonate.
- [00:01:56.490]If you wanna find the ocean turtle
- [00:01:58.720]you have to be like water.
- [00:02:01.360]This is my first time being a puppet.
- [00:02:03.650]I believe my first time being a turtle as well.
- [00:02:06.620]I really hope people do enjoy it because it
- [00:02:08.920]was a pleasure to make.
- [00:02:10.370]And it's really fun to do as well.
- [00:02:12.486](slow singing)
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