F13 Introduction to Puppetry

A few weeks a go a theater in my home town, La Jolla Playhouse, put on a Theater Without Walls festival or WOW for short. This included over 20 different productions and activities all through out the weekend of October third through sixth. The productions took place in cars, in parks, in backyards and much more. Basil twist put on a production called Seafoam Sleepwalk; A production that put specially designed puppets in the ocean at Scripps Beach in La Jolla. The Production was conceived and built by Basil Twist and incorporated local Actors as the puppeteers.

 The show starts at the water's edge and moves deeper into the sea, with audience members watching from the sand. Aphrodite appears from the ocean fully formed and eventually turns onto a monster terrorizing the puppeteers. Aphrodite is made out of plastics and many other water resistant materials. She is operated by 11 puppeteers both on the inside holding her up and on the outside operating her arms. Aphrodite's skeleton is made of metal pipes, fencing, and plastic tubing. The added details as well as her skin and facial features are all made out of different types of plastic. Below is a picture from inside Aphrodite.

The story was Basil Twist's fantasy of the myth. Art Historian Pierrette Van Cleve, a patron of one of the productions said of the performance “This is Venus, the goddess of love, shedding her skin, rising out of the primordial sea to be born, and then reborn, this is what creation myths are about. We create, and we destroy, and then return back to the ocean, only to evolve and re-evolve again.”

Due to the unpredictability of the ocean, Aphrodite had a tendency to capsize revealing all puppeteers underneath including Twist. The puppeteers mainly rehearsed in lower tides, rendering them unprepared for the bigger waves. However many audience members found his aspect of the performance to enhance rather than detract. Over all the performance was met with positive reviews.

Below are links to articles about the performance and a video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4GpniN28xY

http://www.lajollalight.com/2013/10/09/‘seafoam-sleepwalk’-brings-wet-wow-theatre-to-la-jolla-shores/?pid=5529

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/Oct/02/seafoam-sleepwalk-la-jolla-playhouse-wow/