Margaret Cheney agrees that building puppets for a new Shakespearian production at 51鱨վ was an oddball assignment.
It’s also one she found oddly satisfying.
Puppets, she believes, can unlock the imagination.
“They bridge the real and the unreal,” said Cheney, whose interest in puppets stretches back to a class on theatrical masks she took at 51鱨վ nearly 20 years ago. “There is a level of consciousness that can be expressed with a puppet that is really difficult for a human being,” she said. “The same way a story, a novel can sometimes tell more truth than non-fiction.”
A blend of person and puppet inhabit the strange world of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” as imagined by director Chris Hanna. The play opens Thursday, April 10, at Goode Theatre, and runs through April 20. Tickets are available .
“I've wanted to incorporate puppetry into a production for years,” Hanna wrote. “I have steered the creative choices on the production towards magical realism, which suits the play’s theatricality … As‘TheTempest’explores themes of colonialism and servitude, I find the relationship between puppet and handler to be especially haunting.”
Cheney built the puppets with help from student Sean Kirkpatrick based on designs by Old Dominion Costume Shop Manager Jessica Gaffney.
“I had only ever designed one puppet before and it was a two-person barracuda puppet for a production of‘Finding Nemo,’so it was a fascinating process,” Gaffney said.
First, she sketched them, finding inspiration from the work of Neville Tranter, a puppeteer based in the Netherlands. She then employed student workers to make clothing for the puppet actors, who are manipulated, not by strings, but by a hand inserted through the back.
“There have been two big surprises in working with puppets for the first time,” director Hanna wrote. “First, I’ve been inspired by watching how much our acting students have learned through manipulating their smallest gestures. Second, I had no idea how much work is involved. It truly takes a village!”
Cheney started building the puppets in December. They were still being tweaked less than a week before curtain.
The mother of what she calls “her creepy little dudes,” Cheney has deep connections to the Hampton Roads theater community — so she understands the effort and resourcefulness it takes to create a production from scratch.
She is married to Woody Robinson, facilities manager for the Old Dominion theatre complex and a veteran scenery and lighting designer. Over the years, Cheney has helped adorn sets at Old Dominion as well as for plays staged by Norfolk’s Generic Theater.
All that experience — not to mention skills honed making doll house miniatures and even gardening — helped her flesh out the story’s European royalty characters. They came to life with wire, cloth, paper mâché, plaster gauze, foam pool noodles and tomato plant ties.
Oh, and lots of glue.
“People ask my husband, ‘How long does it take to design and build a set?’” Cheney shared. “He says, ‘About 40 years.’ It’s similar for me,” Cheney said. “Now, let me show you how the ears were made …”
She enjoys creative problem solving and learning new techniques. That’s part of the fun.
There’s also the satisfaction of watching something you built come to life for an audience — even if what you made is somewhat, well, unsettling.
“It's satisfying in a way that I can’t find elsewhere,” said Cheney, smiling. “It’s a public expression of a private thought. I hope I don’t get taken away!”