Puppetry in Practice: Developing an Attitude Toward Ecology

In the case of Long Island Sounds: AnUnderwater Puppet Show, we set out to explore the realm of underwaterpuppetry. I had been obsessed with the idea for years after learning about SymphonieFantastique, directed by Basil Twist. That production, initiallystaged in 1998, was an abstract underwater ballet set in a 1,000 gallon tank.The puppeteers animated fabric, pieces of plastic, glitter, feathers, and lightitself to bring the music of Hector Berlioz to life. (BasilTwist.com.)

Why not explore underwater puppetry atStepping Stones? It seemed the perfect venue to present abstract, otherworldlyaesthetics, and to explore the engineering challenges that would arise byputting puppets in a fish tank. Also - it was just plain cool to see!

Well, that brings up other considerations.While puppetry for puppetry's sake is great fun, at Stepping Stones puppetry isa vehicle for exploring and cultivating human development through experientialeducation.

Okay, TJ likes underwater puppetry… So what?

While the medium is deeply fascinating, thatis not enough of a reason to plunge into a new production. There must be acompelling context.

Then we considered the nearest water feature:the Long Island Sound.

A question began to develop:

Can we use underwater puppetry to teach aboutthe species that live in the Sound?

Which created more questions.

How much can we rely on the backgroundknowledge of children to recognize various species?

And more questions.

Can we raise awareness about the pollutionaffecting our waterways in a compelling and safe context using underwaterpuppetry?

Ultimately, the questions support the goal ofdeveloping an attitude toward ecology in our audiences. The final show wouldnot be a presentation of facts and figures, but would present a picture of anenvironment threatened by plastics. The hope being that families take care toclean up after themselves when they visit waterways, or take a deeper dive intothe study of our aquatic ecosystems and what we can do to help them.

So other connections become apparent.

We make our puppets out of trash. Let'scollect trash at local beaches and make a show around the Long Island Sound.

Suddenly: research.

What lives in the Sound?

What do these species look like?

How does a sand tiger shark move?

What amount of waste ends up in the Soundannually?

●     120,000+ cigarette butts

●     82,000+ small pieces of plastic

●     54,000+ food wrappers

●     24,000+ bottle caps

●     15,500+ plastic straws

●     100+ Styrofoam objects at eachcleanup site

(SaveTheSound’s CT Cleanup Years 2017-2022)

What is being done to protect wildlife?

On and on.

One question leads to answers for a questionyou weren't quite aware you'd ask next.

Questions inform the entire creative process.If we want families to come away with an awareness of plastics pollutingwaterways and poisoning wildlife, what should the puppets be made of?

We settled on using the very material we werewarning against, especially the debris reflected in the report by Save theSound.

We went to Calf Pasture Beach and combed theshore for debris. Thankfully, there wasn't too much to pick up (great for theSound, not so good for making a beach-trash-sourced school of fish).

We decided to also use pieces of trash foundat the Museum, taking into consideration some familiar objects that kids wouldinstantly recognize as garbage.

Foil from sandwiches became the scales offish. A plastic bottle became a shark. I melted lids into starfish and turnedZiploc bags into jellyfish.

We made jellyfish.

Silverfin striped bass (????)

Sea stars.

Eels.

Kelp.

Etc.

The final result was a startling effect thatraised another question:

If this plastic water bottle looks like areal fish to you, imagine what it must look like to wildlife?

And then we had to figure out how to deal withthe water in the theater.

We had to make sure everyone could see thehappenings of the Sound in a twenty-gallon tank.

And before, between, and during all of that,we had to discover how to bring this trash to life through music and movement.

During another project, I met the artist J.T.McCann. I became familiar with him through his photography, but quickly learnedhe received a master's at NYU in Screen Scoring, Music Theory and Composition.He had released music that seemed to speak to these submerged scenes: thebeauty of nature, the nature of water, and moods ranging from perilous toserene. With J.T.'s permission, his EP Nature’s Course, along with another of hiscompositions, Rain Rain Go Away, would become the soundtrackof Long Island Sounds.

I listened fervently, storyboarded sequences,and eventually began to experiment with the puppets in motion accompanied bythe music.

Then the tank arrives in the theater.

We transport water by the bucketful.

Hang up our puppets for use and place a drippan underneath them.

We connect to a live video camera to transportour Ziploc bag jellyfish and sandwich-wrapper tuna puppets onto ourthirty-five-foot screen.

Over the course of the show, an eel makes afriend, hungry yellow-ribboned can fish eat bottle caps (and get caught in anet), a shark gets chased by a school of foil fish, sea stars perform a ballet,and through it all we connect with the simplest puppet in the show: a singlefish made from a piece of plastic with some aluminum foil wrapped around it.

Despite its simplicity, the recurring figureoffers the audience a familiar symbol—a character, a face—to ground them in anotherwise abstract and alien seascape. It is the single fish that the childrenmost call out for as the tank fills with swirling garbage, and the one theycheer for as a diver cleans out the trash to free the marine life.

The show is always followed by dozens ofquestions from curious minds.

How were the puppets made?

"We have those at home!"

Was that a stingray?

In the words of fellow puppeteer and clown,Anthony Selitto-Budney, founder of Breakfast Puppets:

"The car ride home should be moreinteresting than the puppet show."

We aspire for the same goals now that we didwhen first staging the show in 2023:

●     Families take interest in nativewildlife and waterway health.

●     Recognize the possibilities ofupcycled art.

●     Come away with a higher awarenessof ways to protect local ecosystems.

●     Develop interspecies empathy.

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