Puppetworks! Mini-Fest to feature puppeteers from France, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Ontario

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Thanks to some last-minute tourism recovery funding, Springworks is presenting a four-day Puppetworks! Mini-Fest, featuring performers from France, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Ontario, that starts Thursday.

Mixed in with Stratford Summer Music performances in and around Gallery Stratford and Upper Queens Park, as well as the gallery’s ongoing exhibitions, the Puppetworks! Mini-Fest will feature creative and colourful performances by French object puppeteer Elvis Alatac, Théâtre Motus from Longueil, Que., Nova Scotia’s The Hatch, and the Montreal-based Les Chasseurs de Rêves.

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“By the nature of COVID, our programming (for Puppetworks!) was going to be one show a month, and then the federal folks added money in to support more programming and actually to feed artists,” said SpringWorks artistic producer Eileen Smith Wednesday afternoon as the mini-fest performers arrived in Stratford and began rehearsing. “So it went from being a single show to being a mini-fest in about a month’s notice.”

Having worked with many of these artists over the past year in hopes of bringing them to Stratford for Puppetworks! once pandemic restrictions eased, Smith and her team managed to quickly put together a jam-packed lineup of shows starting and ending with Alatac’s Something’s Rotten (in the State of Denmark), a show the puppeteer has taken across France and Europe, and throughout Quebec.

Speaking with the Beacon Herald Wednesday afternoon in between rehearsals, Alatac said his Stratford performances mark the show’s first English-language rendition, which the puppeteer plans to take on tour across Ontario and Western Canada between now and January.

“It’s a clowny version of Hamlet. It’s (about) an actor, a clown in the European version, a clown of theatre … (who) wants to be onstage, wants to be creative, wants to be (like other actors). … So this clown wants to be a great actor and in his mind – in my mind – to be a great actor you have to perform the greatest play in the world, Hamlet,” Alatac said.

But without any other actors to play each of the characters, the clown – played by Alatac – uses everyday objects as puppets to act out each of the parts.

“Hamlet is a fork, Polonius is a plastic bottle of wine, Claudius the king is a turkey baster, the queen is a tea kettle, Ophelia is a tissue rose, Laertes is a pizza cutter … and the ghost of Hamlet’s father is a ball of wool,” Alatac said.

Alatac said he’s excited to present the English version of his show for the first time to audiences in Stratford, the translation of which was a bit tricky but helped him to better understand Hamlet in its original Shakespearean English. There will be five performances of Something’s Rotten during Puppetworks! Mini-Fest, one each day and a second performance on Aug. 22 presented in French, as the show was originally written.

Alongside Alatac’s show, the mini-fest will include performances of:

• Three Fairy Tales – Le Trois Petits Cochons (The Three Little Pigs), Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (Little Red Riding Hood) and Le Loup, La Chèvre et Les Sept Chevreaux (The Wolf, The Goat, and the Seven Kids) – by the Théâtre Motus puppeteers on Aug. 20 and 21 in Upper Queens Park;
• Salar, an environmental theatre performance by The Hatch about the lifecycle of the Atlantic salmon at the north end of the Gallery Stratford property from Aug. 20 to 22; and
• La Source D’Or & Les Oiseaux by Les Chasseurs de Rêves, which will see Al Fresco diners throughout Stratford entertained by stilt-walking artists dressed as magical creatures during the puppet festival’s four-day run.

“All of our seating for all of our programming is in pods of families, households, friends – whoever you feel comfortable sitting close to – and the pods are going to be six feet apart,” said Smith, adding that all other pandemic protocols will be in place during the festival.

Tickets can be purchased for $20 per five-person pod by visiting www.springworksfestival.ca.

gsimmons@postmedia.com