Puppetry and Disability

Exploring what how puppetry adapts to different people and how these adaptations enhance storytelling in theatre.

Two people, a mane and a woman, around a table, playing with and handling a small human puppet.

Marc Parett and Simi Roach at the VX Lab Puppetry and Disability

The Puppetry and Disability Lab took place at the Albany, Deptford in early June.  It was a joyous week characterised by a playful approach from all those involved.

We had the pleasure to bring five actors and theatre makers in the room: Lee Philips, Simi Roach, Ciaran Steward, Jasmine Thien and Ellie Walwork. The Lab week was led and facilitated by puppetry artists Nikki Charlesworth and Marc Parrett.

The research ambition of the Lab was to explore how puppetry adapts to different people and how these adaptations enhance storytelling in theatre. 

It quickly became clear that puppets and puppetry deliver through a particular set of conventions that apply to their operation and manipulation:

  • how we expect puppets to move
  • how they are made
  • who they represent
  • where the eye-gaze of the puppet is set

The team then explored and interrogated how these conventions define the way puppets tell a story.

  • Two men crouch behind a table and with heads tilted to the left they look at various props and items on the table.
  • Four people touch and handle a human-shaped small puppet in front of them. The puppet is bald, with a few spiky blond hairs.
  • A woman holds a human-shaped puppet standing on the table. The puppet’s face stares at the camera, it wares a yellow rain coat and grey trousers. Across the table a woman holds the puppets hands.
  • Eleven people sit around two tables, holding and handling puppets, or touching the puppets.
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The week saw the creatives making their own puppets, inventing new ways of animating existing and their own puppets which in turn generated new ways of communicating through puppets.

Allied to the adaptations made by the creatives, they consistently uncovered an immediate impact on the type of stories that could and should be told by them.

A compelling discovery was a frequently discussed parallel between the relationship of puppets and the all-powerful puppeteer who controls the puppet’s movements and words against  the lived experience of disabled people who are frequently moved or touched without being asked.

Findings from the Lab will be published in the coming months.

Acknowledgements

VX Labs is a three-year development programme that initiates new explorations of disabled-led practices, pursue disabled excellence and support intersectional practices within our sector.

With thanks to Attenborough Arts Centre, Bristol Old Vic, Half Moon Theatre, Phizzical Productions, Z-arts, and Sheffield Theatres for supporting the VX Labs programme.

Read more about VX Labs and the findings from previous Labs: Creative Captioning, Decolonising Disability, Children and Young People.