Oral Story-telling: A Piece of My Puppet Show

The following is the first ten minutes, read aloud, of the puppet show re-telling of the Norwegian folktale, "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," that I'm working on with Steve Coleman. It's set in the foothills of the Sierras, and on the Farallon Islands, after the Gold Rush, and functions as a series of monologues from different characters telling their versions of the story. I had to make it into a video in order to upload it with the most ease here. The photos are my own, of Tuolomne Meadows, a landscape similar to the one where much of the story takes place, and the Farallon Islands (taken by my boyfriend while on a whale-watching boat that rocked and lunged like a scrap of paper on the Pacific—I was quite unsteady and could not have wielded a camera). Apologies for the poor recording quality. This is just to give a sense of the story, of its strangeness and magic. Imagine human sized puppets with animal heads. Imagine something wholly whimsical, but also dark, and spare, and haunted. Imagine a world on stage where everything—the rocks and rivers, the winds and bears and golddust— is alive. And, of course, imagine music, the twang of stringed instruments, the ghostly trills of whistle and harmonica.

Clay Puppets, Thistles and the Fertile Chaos of An Artist's Studio

I went to visit Steve Coleman on Saturday to talk about our puppet show. This is his studio, at night, above a theater. It is pure magic, full of rich colors and the strange faces of puppets, clocks, painted cupolas and Venetian balconies, mice in vests reading in pagodas, stray teacups, saws, brushes, nasturtiums or peonies in vases, a metal saucepan with chai tea bags sticking out, books and books on renaissance art, fairytales, romantic poetry, records. At the moment, this puppet show is deep in the rich mud of both of our minds, about to spring forth from all the beauty of just-managed chaos. I wish the studio in my mind looked exactly like this:

This is the flavor of the story we are creating-- me in words, Steve in puppets and sets. Who knows what it will look like in the end? Something that takes you beyond the veil of the seen and known, into the strange and dark, the whimsical and the earthen, a world where grizzly bears, trolls and riverbeds speak, yearn and suffer, a world where the winds walk like men with harmonicas and the forgotten deities, spirits, imps, of immigrants live in the places between: cracks in stone, blustery islands, patches of dandelion and thistle.

Below are two pages of the puppet show from my notebook, just a little taste. Everything starts on paper, with a good, trusted, smooth pen, much of the time on the Victorian writing box my Aunt gave me for my birthday a few years ago, tilted up just enough so you don't have to hunch over your words, with space inside for paper, nibs, ribbons, envelopes, whatever you want to hide in it.

A Puppet Play, on the Way...

 Asbjornsen, Peter Christen and Moe, Jorgen. 
East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North. 
Kay Nielsen, illustrator. New York: George H. Doran, n.d. [1914].

I'm hard at work on a puppet show rendition of the old Scandinavian fairy tale, "East O' the Sun, West O' the Moon." It will be set in the post-gold rush mountains and river valleys of California, told in many voices. Steve Coleman, brilliant and whimsical set-designer, artist and puppet-maker, of Mill Valley, is my artistic partner in crime. My boyfriend and brother are on board as musicians, and there is an array of possible players, felt-makers, wood-painters, to be gathered.

This is my favorite illustration from the classic version, a little taste for you of something strange and wild and delightful to come. I'm going to put up a few pieces of the puppet play this weekend, with photos of Steve's delicious work. This is just to whet the appetite a bit.