A spooky puppet show at UNC Charlotte offers surprising insights

As the air turns crisp, the season seems right for a little spooky fun. Perfect timing for a group of UNC Charlotte students retelling a classic horror film in a surprising way: with table top puppets. It’s been an eye-opening experience for students and likely will be for local audiences, too.

Students in Associate Professor of Scenic Design Tom Burch’s puppetry class are rehearsing an adaptation of the 1920 silent film, “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” It’s an important piece of movie history.

Many scholars consider it the first horror film, Burch said. It was also an influential example of German Expressionism as a visual art. That early 20th century artistic movement emphasized internal emotions over reality. The film uses sharp lines, irregular shapes, avant garde camera angles and other techniques to create a “stunningly weird and visual” universe, Burch said, which the UNC Charlotte group attempts to recreate in “The Caligari Project.”

“It has all of these really interesting linchpins into things that are culturally very much part of entertainment and culture,” he said.

It influenced later films like “Nosferatu” and the first “King Kong’‘ movie, and introduced familiar story-telling tropes such as a monster carrying a presumably dead woman.

The workshop production will premiere November 2-5 in the Black Box Theater at UNC Charlotte’s Robinson Hall.

At a recent Friday rehearsal, students listened intently as Burch described sounds, sights and emotions motivating each puppet’s movement. Although not yet painted or costumed, the two-foot high wooden puppets seemed to come to life as students worked together to move them in eerily human ways.

The effects were striking, such as when one puppet leaned on a tiny cane to take one laborious step after another, crossing the set. In another scene, a visibly distraught puppet — operated by three students simultaneously — was being chased. He glanced quickly over his shoulder before running through the air. Meanwhile, tables and set pieces appeared to magically slide into place.

“[O]ne of the things that I think is fascinating about puppetry is that you know it’s not real but you believe it’s real,” Burch said. “… the more naturalistic a movement a puppet can make, the quicker it is for an audience to sort of ignore the puppeteer and focus on the puppet.”

The puppets, designed by Burch, are based on a simplified version of Bunraku, a puppetry style that first developed in 17th century Japan. Traditionally, puppeteers work for many years to master movements. One person operates the feet, another the left hand, and the most experienced puppeteer moves the head and right hand.

In Burch’s class, the dozen students working on the project come in with different backgrounds, including theater performance, technical theater and architecture. Burch, whose recent theatrical work includes projects across North Carolina as well as in Florida and Italy, is best known as a scenic designer, but he’s also worked with puppetry throughout his career. It’s been five years since he last offered the course.

Discovering puppetry

For senior Irene Nash, the opportunity has been full of discovery. “I didn’t realize how diverse puppetry could be,” she said.

Prior to the class, she had only seen puppets used in comical ways. This semester she’s learned about many other styles, including her favorite, water puppetry, where puppeteers are immersed in a pool and puppets seem to glide along the water.

“It’s not just for children or… on ‘Sesame Street’ or ‘The Muppets,’” said Nash, a theater major double concentrating in performance and directing. “People all around the world have been doing this for centuries...”

Performing in a silent film adaptation is also a unique experience, she said, since there is no dialogue. Instead of listening for cues, students must watch for subtle movements.

“It’s like the complete opposite of what we usually do in shows and productions,” she said.

Students are also not supposed to draw attention to themselves. All the focus is on the puppets.

To fill in the story, occasional supertitles will be projected on the set. Puppet scenes will also alternate with narrated-only segments, voiced by four students. Burch hopes a silent movie era-inspired soundscape, including some fun contemporary melodies (listen for The Police’s “Every Breath You Take”), will enhance the experience.

Nash said she enjoys the hands-on challenge of puppetry and opportunities for collaboration. Students work alongside Burch to determine the best way to perform various moments. Making a puppet move and respond realistically also requires very specific character work—something she can apply in future productions, too.

“I’ve had to be so much more intentional with the puppets than I ever have in my own performances,” she said.

This is the first-ever performance experience for senior Diego Milner, a student in UNCC’s David R. Ravin School of Architecture. When he saw “puppetry” listed as an elective for architecture students, he registered expecting a theoretical class comparing building and puppet design.

“I didn’t know that I was going to be a part of the show,” Milner said, “but … I think it’s a very happy surprise. ‘Cause I don’t think I would have ever chosen to do it any other way.”

The experience has exposed him, he said, to something totally new and interesting.

He’s learned about the behind-the-scenes components and teams that come together to make a successful production: from lighting design to staging techniques that make props and action visible for the audience. He’s been impressed by how much critical thinking goes into the process and surprised to discover modifications also happen “on the fly” during rehearsals.

Like other students, Milner is acting as a puppeteer. But he and a fellow architecture student are also designing and building three distinct beds for different characters.

Milner said it is challenging to create something at a puppet scale that is durable, easy to construct and also reflects the style of the play. “You have all of these grays, all of these twisted perversions of reality as you move around the scene,” he said, but it also needs to read clearly as a bed.

Milner said this opportunity to see how his skills can be used in a totally different field has opened his eyes to different career possibilities. A lot of students go through the architecture program and then realize that maybe they don’t want to work in a firm for the rest of their life, he added.

“It really shows us what we’ve been learning can apply to a lot more than just buildings.”

Students within and outside the puppetry class are also getting hands-on experience with this production, from costume design and fabrication to set building and even dramaturgy.

A human story that still resonates

Burch said the film also touches on political and human questions that remain relevant. In the film, Cesare is a sleepwalker and Dr. Caligari conducts experiments, using him to take murderous revenge on people he thinks have wronged him. For Burch, the story is about who has power, how they use it, and what responsibility people have for their actions when they fall prey to someone who has directed them in specific ways.

“It was an incredibly prescient movie for 1920 in Germany,” Burch said. “Because it is essentially a warning about fascism and the rise of nationalist power.”

The film’s writers had a big falling out with the director because he added a framing device about madness at the end, Burch said. His story adaptation is based on the original script because he thinks the film’s confusing ending dilutes its message.

“Every theater show on stage is saying something about what it means to be human,” Burch said. “And whether it’s set in a specific period, in a specific time, it still speaks to the question of what our society is reacting to now.”

Want to go?

“The Caligari Project” plays November 2 - 4 at 7:30 p.m. and on November 4 and 5 at 2 p.m.

UNC Charlotte’s Robinson Hall, The Black Box Theater

Tickets are $8 - $18

For tickets, visit coaa.charlotte.edu/events/caligari-project

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