Friday, March 22, 2019
Yngvild Aspeli’s "Ashes": Puppets That Haunt And Kindle
The Theatre Times: When does desire give way to fixation, compulsion, addiction? In Yngvild Aspeli’s exquisite show Ashes, these tendencies are at the root of two seemingly opposed pursuits: creation and destruction. Ashes is a production of Aspeli’s company Plexus Polaire which uses emotive, nearly life-size puppets to tell a haunting story about obsession and inherited trauma. Two stories actually.
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3 comments:
This article starts with an image of the puppets. Before you even begin to read the actual meat and ideas of this article, you look at five puppets with huge black eyes onto faces that resemble something too close to realism. Before I read any words, I continued to look at the rest of the pictures included. The look of these puppets gives off something so haunting and isolated, they aren't friendly looking puppets, but they aren't puppets I think that are supposed to make you afraid either. Let's just say that these puppets look like they're suffering some damage. The article itself describes the story, which melds the use of puppets and live action. It includes no dialogue, but rather we follow the story by the typing of the narrator, something I think is fascinating. The audience will be forced to pay attention. I think, because of this lack of dialogue, the puppets are incredibly necessary, because they describe the real life events as remembered by the narrator. It surprises me that apparently only three puppeteers were needed, because just from the look of the puppets they look delicate enough to need more controlling care. I absolutely wish I could see this show.
I think this show sounds really good. The play seems to be discussing really interesting themes in ways that are not normally portrayed in the theater. I have never thought about arson in terms of addiction but, in this show, the combination seems to make perfect sense. I also think that it is important for this show to address the concept of the “anxiety of influence,” which is a topic that I have never seen portrayed in a production. I also think that the use of puppets in the show is remarkable. From the pictures and descriptions in the article, I can see that these puppets were made incredibly well and effectively. You can see emotion in each face and they portray a range of emotions that are really striking. I also think that using puppets makes the storyline more universal which I think is important for this kind of show.
I find this show intriguing. There seems to be a lot going on, and making effects using many different puppets can be extremely complex. I would like to go see this show, for recently I have become very intrigued by the versatility with puppets. This article also brought up a topic I have not thought about for a little while. I remember once reading an article about writers and drinking culture, how many of them feel almost taught, that thee greatest of writers were alcoholics, and if they weren’t they probably could not have contributed as much. There is almost a fetishization of the “tortured artist”. On one hand, people who have experienced some deeper pain have an honest understanding of the world when it comes to humans and our experience. Pain is, however, blinding to some of the natural world, and our looking big picture. Pain corrupts.
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