Also included throughout the interview are pictures of Erik with some of the puppets from "Small Pair of Feet" because they are gorgeous puppets, Erik is a handsome lad, and pictures are fun.
Kit Steinkellner- So I'm here with famed puppeteer Erik Finck. Erik, tell me, how did you get into puppetry?
Erik Finck- Well, the first time I did puppets was for Professor [Pat] Harter, for a Southeast Asia Theater class. My partner and I did an adaptation of a Spanish folktale about a scarecrow who decided he doesn't want to scare crows anymore, he wants to be the crows' friend. And then, after that, there happened to be a class on puppetry offered the next quarter [at UCLA], and I was like "Oh, I enjoyed that project, I'll take that class," and it all escalated from there, jobs and projects and all sorts of back-to-back stuff.
KS- So let's get some terms straight. How exactly do you define a puppet? Or a puppeteer? Or even just puppetry in general?
EF- You know, the more into puppetry and puppet theater you get, I think the harder it is to define. I think I would say puppeteering is animating an inanimate object. So you can easily have a shoe be a puppet if you can make that shoe take on a life and a personality. But it also reaches the point where people make shapes or shadows with their hands and call it puppetry,and then it becomes really dicey, because your hands are attached to a living body but don't really have a consciousness of their own.
KS- Let's talk specifically about the design for "A Small Pair of Feet in the Middle of the Sea," both the conception and the process.
EF- Well, the idea to have puppets in the play was thanks to a very, very...[classic Finckian long, thoughtful pause]... astute and provocative stage direction in the play, which the playwright inserted in the script where there is this testimony that Daedulus gives, and the director [theatre professor Gary Gardner] thought "Oh, it says this could be a puppet show in the script, let's get puppets in the show!" After we established puppets used in that sequence, we tried to indicate other sequences where puppets could be integrated into the show. As far as the aesthetic concept of the show, each sequence is a bit different. The first sequence which is Daedulus' exposition is probably the longest, probably, no, definitely has the most puppets. My idea for that was to create something that looked rather Cretian.
KS- Quickly, define that.
EF- Pre-Christian. Pagan.
Mediterranean Europe. But also somewhat playful and a little bit like resembling toys, also making something that could be at times kind of silly and fun, and at times a little bit more stately and poignant. And then the ending sequence, the aesthetic I'm using for that could be called--- cave-painting grafitti.
KS- I don't think I need a definition for that!
EF- Ha!
KS- Keep going.
EF- Right. So we're doing the last sequence in black light. The theme of this sequence is abstraction. The theme of that is in the play, how history abstracts humanity, how it robs us of our individuality. So we have repeated pictures of fish, seaweed, stars-- all looking the same. So that was my thinking behind that.
KS- Very, very good thinking. Let's talk about construction. I know you had a lot of puppet parts around your house over the winter break...
EF- You know, building always just takes forever no matter what the project is. And I think it's something that can go overlooked- the actual construction process. I remember talking to one of my puppetry mentors/teachers and saying how designing this show is so nervewracking, and I hope it all turns out well. And my teacher says all you need to do is make sure it holds together. Which is true, but after that I say, that's easier said than done! A lot of ["Small Pair of Feet"] is built with very cheap materials.
KS- Oh, thanks.
[Erik ignores my stupid joke and continues on.]
EF- They told me in part, when they brought me on, "Your budget is as little as you can possibly afford to spend." so the bull and cow's bodies I made out of 25 cent Easter baskets. There's a lot of paper mache materials made of of Trader Joes' bags. A lot of the puppets' faces and hands were made out of paper pulp substance, ad they're all dressed in fabric scraps.
KS- Did the theme dictate the materials or was it the other way around?
EF- It's both. I would say certainly from my experience with puppets and especially with the assemblage, the material always has the final say. You can't get the material to do something it won't. Sometimes you get an idea like, "Oh, I'm going to build this cow out of plastic water jugs" and when those just won't work, you have to answer the question, what will work? But for some things I knew, like I knew I wanted the hands and face of the puppet to be made out of paper pulp material, because it dries with this almost stone quality, and again, that idea of pre-Christian pagan effigies.
KS- So you know how sometimes we say a musical needs to be in the form of a musical because of the story, because the story just needs to sing? Can we apply that logic to puppet theater? When do you think puppets need to be in a performance? What do you think they bring that other aspects of performance do not?
EF- That's the most difficult question you've asked me!
[I laugh knowingly]
KS- I know! Answer it!
EF- Well, I like puppet theater, because through it I've seen the most modest and fun but still really simple and effective theater, ad I've also seen some of the most stunning, grandiose, larger than life theater. So, to some extent, puppets do extremes very well. I think in general puppet theater is an image-drive genre, it certainly can have words, but from what I've experienced puppet theater is most effective when it's visually driven. When you talk about integrating puppets into a play, it can often be a very tricky, trapeze-balancing act. I think the amount of puppets you use in a play would change its tone. At first you wouldn't--like "Glengarry Glen Ross", most people would never think of this as a puppet play, but what would it be like as puppet theater? Could change the tone and potentially the message of the play. So puppets can have a lot of different effects. We should be conscious of the effect they bring in that particular dramatic context.
KS- I feel like we're talking about puppets' rights!
EF- Yes!
KS-Let's try this. Do you notice any ways that you personally or the audience in general relates differently to puppets than live human actors?
EF-It's definitely true, people interact with puppets differently. I know when I was doing puppetry at the Skirball for the "Noah's Ark" children and family exhibit, there were kids who would just fall in love with the puppets. One little boy, I remember, he was just kissing our red Japanese fox over and over again, and also kind of drooling on it. And I remember this other time, when another kid responded to our Golden Langur Monkey puppet, which is a relatively small puppet, but it's operated by 4 puppeteers. This kid was just so into the monkey, and he finally asks "Is there a person inside of it?" But it's not just kids, it's adults too. I remember a show we did last quarter, there was this grandma puppet, sort of like the Swedish chef Muppet, same construction. And we though it would be fun to have this puppet mingle afterwards. And the audience was touching her, and she was touching them. Someone gave her a big kiss, that really surprised me. Puppets are less threatening than human, persay, and you can use that quality about puppets to really achieve something positive.
KS- You think that's a factor in the success of-say like Jim Henson and his Muppets/Sesame Street?
EF- Absolutely. And also, with Big Bird and Grover, they're totally relatable. They have very human-like characteristics and emotions, but they're also sort of imaginary enough that they could be anybody, any child's best friend. I think that's also why Sesame Street has been able to be exported to so many different countries-- Africa, India, and so on. The abstraction-- the fact that it's not American, or African, or Asian-- it's a blue fuzzball.
KS- So there's an element of universality in puppets?
EF- Yeah.
KS- Let's get back to something we were talking about earlier. You talked about what puppets would bring to a piece like Mamet's "Glengarry." Have you mused about adapting a well-known piece of theater or fiction for performance with partial or full-on puppetry?
EF- Well, I'm most interested in creating new works and context specific works, But I do think about adaptation occasionally. Puppets are usually used to represent the fantastic and the supernatural for obvious reasons, and I really like that. But I'm also really interested in exploring the possibility of using puppets to represent the mundane and the very human.
KS- So like puppet "Little House on the Prairie?"
[Erik humors me and once again laughs at a stupid joke I crack.]
EF- Well this is something I am thinking about just now as you're prompting me. Puppet "Death of a Salesman" would be really interesting. It would have to be an adapted and condensed and essentialized "Salesman." A lot of the dialogue wouldn't be there.
KS- I'm going to keep on this topic for just one more moment. For the sake of fun, expand on that and talk about how you might design a "Death of a Salesman" puppet piece. And how do you think puppets would affect the play's tone and meaning?
EF- I would probably--- my first impetus is to make what's called a "toy theater piece", which is a mini-proscenium stage-- which can sometimes be quite high tech, have it's own lighting and stuff. The puppets would probably be Czech-style, rod puppets and marionettes-- a hybridized sort of puppet, half rod/half marionette. And the reason "Death of a Salesman" comes to mind is-- I think right now it's become a play about virtuosity, like "Oh, it's such a well-written play," and "Oh, Willie is such a hard and amazing character to play." So I'd like to shift the focus more back towards the sympathy of the piece.
KS- You think puppets could help cut through the cliche of the play?
EF-Yeah, the cliche and perhaps the staidness. I don't think that can work for every type of play. But with 'Salesman', I can imagine some very poetic, non-verbal sequences between the brothers, between Willie and his wife that, I guess again, it's like Sesame Street, they become-- that could maybe be anybody, any person.
KS- So maybe puppets can be effective in even further suspending your disbelief?
EF- Oh yeah, puppets demand that you suspend your disbelief more. Part of me thinks because they demand it so explicitly and so forwardly, we're more inclined to give it to them.
KS- Puppets, the real divas of theater.
EF- Yes! In a way.
KS- Let's jump back a little to talking about creating new works and context specific works. Go on a little about that.
EF- I'm interested in creating puppet pieces often through poetry-- using poems as inspiration. Poems I write or found poems. The poets in particular question is related to the context specific question. A lot of my puppet experience has been with-- really context and purpose driven theater. Like at the Skirball, very community specific, for a very defined group, the youth in Los Angeles, because really,there's not a lot for youth to do in Los Angeles. And then this show I did Fall Quarter, it was this multicultural Day of the Dead-- people designing about death and dying from a specific cultural perspective-- ours was from a specific Japanese perspective. And I've really liked working that way.
It feels very organic, gives me a more direct feeling of having a relationship with the audience.
KS- Badass. Here's a question I want to ask. You know how we were earlier sort of joking about puppet rights?
EF- Yes.
KS- What are some of the misconceptions about puppets you want to get straight, as their, you know, advocate and all?
EF- Oh dear, I'm a puppet advocate now.That's an interesting question you bring up. Lots of puppeteers I know have mixed feelings, nowadays in particular, puppets have become a little trendy. On one level it's great, more jobs, things of that nature, on the other hand, as with most fads, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, people in the puppet world are sort of afraid of puppets becoming this fad and plummeting afterwards. Also, I remember, a lot of people who I've talked to who haven't see as much puppet theater, I pitch ideas for show to them, and they say, that's great, but how do you keep the audience from seeing you? And I'm like, well, you came to a puppet show, why on Earth do you want to watch me?
KS- Before we conclude, anything we missed that you want to say, any points we didn't touch on that are important?
EF- No I think this is quite thorough what we've done. I think Kit can have a dual existence as a playwright/screenwriter/and NPR interviewer.
KS- That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all week.
EF- I think you should also include in your interview that we did this in a theater dressing room with singing lessons going on in the other room.
KS- Done. Thanks so much, Erik, for your time.
EF- Thank you Kit!
Don't worry kids, I know we've taken a bit of a break from the normal silly book and radio reviews and factoid posts but will be back with more of that soon. Plus this is fun, varying it up, and as there is no way I can fully complete the task of making you a smarter, better person all by myself, I rely on my smarter, better friends to help me out every once in a while. But no matter how much I vary up this sucker, you know I constantly remain...
Affectionately Yours,
Kit Steinkellner
You guys, I love this show. It's basically semi-famous intelligentsia figures going up to a microphone and telling embarrassing stories about themselves in front of a live audience! YES! I first heard about it when Ira Glass used one of these monologues on an segment of "This American Life." Ira Glass played Malcolm Gladwell (of "Tipping Point" and "Blink" fame) talking about his first job at the Washington Post and how he would just f*** around trying to get weird phrases into the newspaper as opposed to being a serious journalist, like he is now. And I was like, a.) I love you so much Malcolm Gladwell I want to be in your fanclub and wear a pin with your name on it and b.) what the hell is this Moth podcast and is it as funny/good as this TAL segment was?
