In this Local Artist Spotlight, David Lane shares work that has emerged from years
of puppet-making in the Berkshires. Let your imagination wander through this display
of carved basswood, cast paper, and twisted reed. For only then – with your engagment
– are these puppets brought to life.
Designing puppets for the theater requires the consideration of a unique set of questions:
How should the puppet look? What kind of character is it and how does it function
within the story? How should the puppet move, and what is the quality of that movement?
What should the thing be made out of?
Central to puppet design is the relationship of the object to the performer. It is
through the performer’s sense of breath and intention that the puppet feels alive
and moves with purpose. The skilled puppeteer uses their own impulses and lends them
to the puppet. We accept the puppet as an entity and the puppeteer recedes from the
audience’s concern. But when the performance is over, what is to become of this once
living, breathing, little soul that now lacks the capacity to act and move on its
own? What value do they have once the performance has passed? Lane prefers to think
of the spent-puppets as still housing a potential to spark the imagination — that
indeed, the creative impulses of the maker live somewhere in the materials of the
puppet. Perhaps even the energy of the performance has somehow embedded itself in
some mysterious way just below the surface. Can you sense it?
To learn more about Lane’s work, please visit davidlane-theatre.com and newenglandpuppet.org.
