I AM ANOTHER YOURSELF

Created by the The Puppet and its Dubble

Directed by Chia-Yi Cheng

AVIGNON OFF 2009/Length of the Show: One hour

 

One life’s show

The Puppet and its Double experiments again the success they had during the Off Festival in 2007.  A deserved success according to their high mastery in the art of puppets: accurate gesture, dexterity in the moves, subtle feelings in harmony with the jazzy music, lullabies, or piano. The art director, Ms Chen, had created for our great pleasure a beautiful and poetic show, delicate and sensitive, around the tragic theme of death. Different characters stroll on a small black covered stage specially made for those tiny beings. Four puppeteers and their incarnations, beautiful puppets similar to Giacometti’s, come after one another, discuss, squabble, play, love and die, telling without words their life made of everyday things, great events, meetings and losses, love and death…

From scene to scene, we discover a wonderful world inhabited by ghosts. The monkey man, dragging around a suitcase bigger than him, will find death with his peers at the zoo; an old lady will be eaten by her carnivorous dog, the funny bird-man and his bird looking for freedom, which was devoured by the dog ; a mother will search for her drowned son in the waters.. We will meet likeable characters, funny and fated to die, as we all are, as this couple in love that will be carried by death to the grave, a funny and delicate scene reminding us the Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice. Death is presented on all its sides, arising anywhere, at anytime, gate crashing our life. A very special guest not always desired. Nevertheless, in spite of the tragic theme of this marvelous creation, we are laughing about these cartoon characters, and our heart is crying at the sight of this woman whose son was taken away by waves, her sadness reminds us « Sister Angelica » in the Puccini’s Opera : with the music of Chopin, we think about this wonderful and gripping tune… Senza mamma, tu sei muorto… An instant of rare beauty is when she flies away with her son, dancing in the sky, or when she’s waiting for the train, her skirt floating in the air.

And we leave this world, smiling, happy, with hope, because that’s life, and maybe there is something after? The emotion still grips us and we are plunged in a transcendent vision of death, a transcendence that is chasing our most profound fears. And even if it feels unfinished, we can only applause this magnificent work.

Diane VANDERMOLINA/Translation: Audrey Husson