Texte, Fotos & Copyright:
Rainer Sennewald / Forum Papiertheater

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GREAT SMALL WORKS
7TH INTERNATIONAL TOY THEATER FESTIVAL
and
Temporary Toy Theater Museum
JUNE 10 – 19, 2005
ST. ANN’S WAREHOUSE, NYC
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Ein Stimmungsbericht in Bildern

Auf dem Preetzer Papiertheatertreffen hatten wir, meine Frau Marlis und ich, den Franziskanerbruder und Papiertheaterspieler Jon Bankert kennen gelernt, dessen Einladung wir folgten, in seinem Kloster in Brooklyn zu wohnen, um von dort das Festival zu besuchen. In dieser Friary war auch das Ensemble aus Palästina untergebracht.
Wegen der großen Hitze zu dieser Zeit mussten die Fenster nachts offen stehen, während die zahlreichen Puertoricaner des Wohnviertels ihren Nationalfeitertag zelebrierten: bis in den Morgen schallte Salsa-Musik aus den Lautsprechern auf den Straßen.

An 10 Tagen traten 30 Ensembles in zahlreichen Aufführungen mit 33 verschiedenen Stücken auf. Dazu gab es eine große Ausstellung und ein Rahmenprogramm mit Podiumsdiskussion, Workshops und Cabaret. In den großen ehemaligen Lagerhallen traf man sich im Foyer mit Bühne, Box-Office und Bar. Dazu gab es die Ausstellungsräume und drei verschieden große Theater, zwei davon mit ansteigenden Sitzreihen für vielleicht 300 bzw. 100 Zuschauer. Im dritten Raum konnten etwa 70 Leute auf Stühlen und am Boden sitzen.

„Great Small Works und Gastkünstler erfinden aufs Neue die nahezu ausgestorbene Tradition des Toy Theater (auch „Papiertheater genannt“) für das zeitgenössische Publikum“ – nicht weniger wurde uns Besuchern angekündigt.

Es gab unter anderem

„„ drei traditionelle Papiertheater-Aufführungen
„„ Stücke, in denen Toy Theater lediglich einen Teil der Darbietung bildete
„„ Filme mit Puppen als Darstellern
„„ Licht- und Soundtheater mit Overhead-Projektoren
„„ eine geheimnisvolle Theaterkiste, in der ein Toy-Theater-Krimi zu sehen war,
    ohne dass man ahnte, wo sich der Spieler befinden könnte
„„ einen Glastisch, auf dem mit Gegenständen und Materialien gespielt wurde,
    von einer Videokamera von unten aufgenommen und auf eine kleine Leinwand
    vor dem Tisch projiziert .

Natürlich konnten wir nur einen Teil der Vorstellungen sehen, aber es reichte für das Erlebnis großer kreativer Vielfalt und Spielfreude. Auch das zahlreich erschienene Publikum war bunt, begeistert und – im Gegensatz zu vergleichbaren Veranstaltungen in Europa – überwiegend jung.

 

 

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Das Programm – die BÜhnen
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Liz Joyce/Steve Widerman – Long Island
Ziegfeld Miniscule Follies
A grand collection of the huge stars of the Follies and their bombastic songs, performed on a miniature replica of the splendorous New Amsterdam Theater.

Michael Romanyshyn/Jason Norris – Maine/Vermont
Theater of Shining Examples: The Buffalo Skinners
Professor Willet Gettbeter and his Teaching Assistant Pino Grigio use carved wooden figures and flat, painted cutouts to present the first in a series inspired by VP Dick Cheney’s asssertion that El Salvador was a “shining example” of U.S. foreign policy.

Janie Geiser – Los Angeles
Two films: Ultima Thule and Lost Motion
Puppeteer, toy theater enthusiast, illustrator, filmmaker, director and designer Janie Geiser returns to New York to screen two of her films which make extensive use of found and constructed objects. Geiser’s work is known for its sense of mystery, its detailed evocation of selfcontained worlds, and its strength of design.

Wiersma and Smeets – Holland
The World Seen from a Perambulator
Bram Wiersma and Moniek Smeets’ unique style of laboratory theater uses old and modern Magic Lantern techniques and live video, a mix of high and low tech, clarity and abstraction, with stunningly simple techniques.

Clare Dolan – Vermont
When Little Pieces of Very Big Things Break Off and Fall
A combination of current events and autobiography -- a comic and serious investigation of how to lead a meaningful life in the midst of the 21st century, in which many little pieces of big things are breaking apart.

Great Small Works – New York
A Walk in the City
Designed and directed by Roberto Rossi, inspired by texts by Italo Calvino.
Soil Desire People Dance
Created by Roberto Rossi and Mark Sussman and based on the writings ofGerman author W.G. Sebald.
Lyzer the Miser
Created by Trudi Cohen, John Bell and Isaac Bell, and based on the story by Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Jenny Romaine/Great Small Works – New York
White Pajamas
A collaboration between Romaine and Polish-Yiddish memory painter MayerKirshenblatt (Toronto). A hand-painted ethnographic motion picure with vivid commentary, performed live by the team.

Susan Simpson –Los Angeles
Three short films
Experimental puppet artist Simpson will be on hand to present her Red Village and Boll Weevil Days, and Dave Burns’ remix of Sunset Chronicles (the marionette serial by the Little Fakers).

Little Blue Moon Theatre – California
Japanese Ghost Story
Yamome-san’s grief over the sudden death of his young wife is ameliorated by her ghostly visits to his bed at night. He discovers that sexual intensity prolongs her visits, but at what cost? By Michael and Valerie Nelson (aka Magical Moonshine Theatre).

Palestinian National Theater – East Jerusalem
Jerusalem and the Little Prince
By Abd El Salam Abdo and Mahmoud Hadyeh and musicians Wa’il Abu Saloum and Mohammed Hadeeb. Experience Jerusalem through the eyes of our little prince, who arrives, poor and alone, in the Old City of Jerusalem and finds new friends and rich cultures coexisting within its walls.
PNT’s artists, all born in Jerusalem, express their love of the Old City with beautifully crafted sets, haunting melodies and colorful characters.

Tom Lee, Adam Cardone, and Jared Stein – New York
Punch of the Dead
Archeologists discover a mysterious, turn-of-the-century, traveling puppet stage. After undertaking a process to collaborate and discover the theatrical possibilities, they quickly learn that this large box has a mind (and story) of its own – one of epic proportions.

Shadowland Theatre – Toronto
Manna from Heaven
The hors d’oeuvre of a multi-course, theatrical feast: a performed meal, one part of a series of shows on the role of food and dining in our society and the rituals and powerful memories evoked when people come together to eat. Anne Barber, Brad Harley, Noah Kenneally and Melissa Trimingham.

Peter Schauerte-Lüke – Germany
Pirates of Penzance
Direct from his small theater in a castle near Cologne, Schauerte-Lüke performs all the characters and songs himself. Originally created with toy theater master Peter Baldwin from England.
I Am the Strongest
A wolf asks everyone in the wood, “Who is the strongest?” and is surprised when someone disagrees. From the children’s book by Mario Ramos.

Alte Zakhen – New York
Momo
Based on a book by Michael Ende, the story of Momo, a rare little girl who discovers the plot to steal time and make us forfeit our lives to incessant busy-ness, consumerism, and alienation. Nirit Ben-Ari Pozniak, Daniel Lang/Levitsky, Andrea Lomanto and Ana Ines Rubinstein.

Puppeteers Co-op – New York, Boston
In the Matter of Moby Dick
This is not so much a show about Moby Dick as a show about the resulting lawsuits - Ahab vs. Mr. Dick, Moby vs. oil-users, the crew vs. everybody. Renowned for large-scale community puppet extravaganzas, Sara Peattie and Theresa Linnihan find a home here with objects on a more intimate scale.

Laura Heit – Chicago
Film: The Amazing Mysterious and True Story of Mary Anning and her Monsters
A film based on the life of Mary Anning (1799-1847) from Lyme Regis, England. When most children were afraid of monsters, Mary sought them out. She had an eye for the unexplainable and in the end her discoveries would change more than she bargained for.

Brian Selznick – New York
The Christine Jorgensen Story
Designer/illustrator Selznick tells the tale of the internationally famous transexual whose transformation in 1952 was such a sensation that she was called “The most talked about girl in the world.” With text by H.C. Anderson, Kate Bornstein and Christine Jorgensen, and music by Eighth Blackbird.

Meredith Holch – Vermont
Film: No Place Like Home
A frame-by-frame animated video exploring the experience of refugees and asylum seekers in the U.S., with a particular focus on the state of Vermont. The film combines multi-layered 2-D colored tissue paper figures, 3-D objects, shadows, and reflections.

Untitled Theater Co. #61 – New York
Unauthorized Magic in Oz
Edward Einhorn (writer/director), Talaura Harms, Tanya Khordoc,Maxwell Zener. Einhorn follows up his Fairy Tales of the Absurd with another offbeat fairy tale, positioning classical toy theater and shadow puppetry within a giant puppet. Images based on illustrations by Eric Shanower, with puppets by Berit Johnson and Barry Weil and music by Willam Niederkorn.

Beth Nixon/Morgan Andrews – Philadelphia
OneEyed Adventures in DeepSea DogLand
A cyclops in distress (and a sequined cape) swims with his therapeutic cheese grater through three suitcase universes in search of a “World Without Walls.”

Le Petit Théâtre de l’Absolu – Montreal
Birds of the Coming Storm
The stories of seven anarchist demonstrators in 19th-century Chicago condemned to hang and the sentencing to death of Antigone. With paper silhouettes torn from the past, the company pays its respects to ghosts whose passion for justice still haunts the modern world. Elizabeth Robertson, Bill E. Dee, Mackenzie Ogilvy and Hermine Ortega.

Jon Bankert – New York
Tales of St. Francis
Franciscan Friar Bankert performs three short stories from the many legends surrounding the life of St. Francis of Assissi: Perfect Joy, The Wolf of Gubbio, and St. Francis’ own ecstatic poem of creation, The Canticle of the Creatures. Bankert sings the text, set to music by Sir Arthur Sullivan.

Blair Thomas – Chicago
Buster Keaton’s Stroll (El Paseo de Buster Keaton)
Puppeteer Thomas adapts a Lorca text - presented on an oversized, self-contained Toy Theater employing a motorized scroll, multiple tubas, and bicycle wheels.

Teatro Tinglado – Mexico
Troka el Poderoso (Troka the Powerful)
Solo performance by Alejandro Benítez from Mexico City’s renowned puppet company. Music by Silvestre Revueltas, with poems and engravings from artists involved in the “Movimiento Estridentista” of the 1920’s.

Liz Joyce – Sag Harbor
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
A Goat on a Boat Puppet Theater production, with miniature marionettes on a rotating stage who tell their tale of hot porridge and intruders.

Cabaret Program

Howie Leifer – NYC
The Rhyme of the Chivalrous Shark
Based on a song by Wallace Irwin written at the turn of the 19th century, sung by Frank Hendricks.

A Drop in the Bucket Puppet Theater – Maine
How to Make a Fiddle
Andrea DeFrancesco, Samuel Cheeney, Cara Romano. “When I’m finished with you, the sound will be.”

Susan Vitucci – New York
Small Fish
A new puppet opera with libretto, puppets and direction by Susan J. Vitucci and original music by composer Henry Krieger. The story of Phoebe, a sardine who becomes separated from her shoal; on her journey to rejoin them, the characters she meets help her come to an understanding of her place in the world. Piano: David Schaefer.

Jollyship the Whiz-Bang – New York
Crabquistador: Scavenger of God
Excerpt from the latest episode in the pirate puppet sea saga by Nick Jones and Raja Azar, with surreal melodrama, dark humor, nautically inspired rock music, powerpoint presentations, sermons, sword fighting, video and smoke effects.

Shoshanna Utchenik – Chicago
Dominion of Fancy: Extra Super Fancy Interlude
Overeducated and under-rehearsed, Utchenik debuts a new work about hoarding and gorging. Mounds of clipped coupons, chewed squeaky toys, and a sledgehammer animate this entropic realm.