The face of my first marionette, Inkin. In one way, Inkin is responsible for my rediscovery of puppetry, but in another more accurate way, it is my good friend Erik Larsen who is responsible. Though I had taken puppetry classes at the Prairie Theatre Exchange, it had been many years since I had thought about puppets in any serious way. I was taking classes at the University of Winnipeg and I had made a habit of studying with Erik in the university’s library. We always studied in the same place, one of the many mezzanine-style study areas that look down on the stacks, and from where we sat we could see this book lying on top of one of the garish orange shelves. It turns out that both Erik and I had been curious about the book before the day we both decided to take a look. It was a big, hardcover book and on the cover were embossed some strange characters and a man holding what turned out to be a puppet over his head. The characters were Japanese, which would account for Erik’s interest. Erik is a huge Japanophile, and he’s spent a year teaching English in Japan. The book was about the Bunraku theatre in Osaka, a theatre which builds the most incredible rod puppets. Each of these puppets is controlled by three puppeteers, one who operates just the face and right hand who is called the omo-zukai, one who operates the left hand who is called the hatari-zukai, and one who operates the feet or, in the case of female puppets, twitches the gown to simulate the motion of legs, who is called the ashi-zukai. Erik and I were amazed. l We both wanted to build these machines but we could not see how to do so without apprenticing ourselves to twenty-year master Japanese woodcarvers. Not that the prospect was grim, only impracticable. Eventually, we decided to use Sculpey, and so the puppet project was born. Inkin's facial motion is based on some pictures in the book that Erik and I found and some other books on Bunraku. We painstakingly followed the strings in the pictures to discover how they worked, calling our friend Dan Powell in for support.

This is Corinthia. After I built Inkin I decided that I should make a marionette that was light enough to be used for more than a minute or two without causing serious muscle strain. I had spoken to a professional puppeteer who recommended paper clay to me, so I set about making a head from this material. You will notice that Corinthia's head is not made out of paper clay. After the head was compete, I made a foam-rubber body much like Inkin's, and along the way I invented the kind of joints that all of my subsequent marionettes have had. Corinthia even had foam-rubber hands and feet at the beginning. Then I decided that the head I had built did not belong with the body, so I carved a new head out of (you guessed it) foam-rubber. Corinthia's control was another adaptation, based on those of the Gogol Puppets. Corinthia can draw her sword, but she cannot resheath it. Here's a little action clip of her doing it. Because the workings of the sword-draw required a pass-through string in one hand, I ended up replacing both hands with ones made from a kind of polymer clay that bakes to the consistency of hard rubber. Many people have described the result as “creepy” or “disturbing.” I also used the polymer clay to replace the feet, which needed the extra weight provided. After I built this puppet I attended a playwrighting class where I wrote a play for her to be in called Anno to the Stars. It is from this play and the most tragic place on earth that she gets her name.

This puppet's name isn't really Orphon, but that's what I call him anyway. The reason that I am so confused about this is that in the play I built him for, Anno to the Stars, he plays a member of a travelling theatre troup that puts on a tradgedy. The name of his character in the tradgedy is Orphon, and since he has no other roll in the larger play he has never gotten a name of his own. Poor guy, I guess that's why he looks so sad. I'm sure that you've noticed by now how..well.. green Orphon is. There are a couple of reasons for that. The first is that I received a copy of A Sailor's Word-Book, composed by the admirable admiral W.H. Smyth. There is a definition in it for Green-Men which runs:

GREEN-MEN. The five supernumerary seamen who had not been before in the Arctic Seas, whom vessels in the whale-fishery were obliged to bear, to get the tonnage bounty.

After reading this I thought that it would be interesting if I invented a fantastical sort of green-men who were actually green, and not just from seasickness. I thought about other green men that I knew, including the Celtic nature spirit and the little green men of pulp science fiction. Nature spirits always remind me of Satyrs and Dionysus, and so I combined all of these ideas in the green satyr who sails through space with a troupe of tragedians. I suspect that there is wine-drinking involved, but that's behind the scenes. Orphon can put on and take off his mask. Watch him do it. He can also play his lyre and cut a mean caper, but you'll have to imagine what that's like from the pictures.

This is Ny’Har Azote, the genie from Anno to the Stars. Here is his story: There was a lot going on in the summer of 2006. After packing all of my belongings into my parents’ basement I attended the Toronto School of Puppetry’s June classes. Before I left Winnipeg, my brother called from Edmonton and asked me if I would perform a show for his wedding. I, of course, said I would. I had a lot of work on my hands, attending a variety of courses during the days and cutting little people out of black card in the evenings. I made the head of this puppet for the class on facial articulation, and spent the usual several months afterwards making the body and designing the control. The break-apart trick was a special nuisance; the blood kept catching on the shoulder, and the controller part of the trick was a zig-zag mess of string. Now it's all very simplified and reliable, and I'll be happy to show it to you if you're ever in Winnipeg.

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