 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
The Orwell Project Animal Farm-Notes on Our ProductionSynapse's production of Animal Farm brings to life the landmark musical stage adaptation created by England's Royal National Theatre (RNT) in 1984. Former RNT Artistic Directors Peter Hall and Adrian Mitchell collaborated on this adaptation, drawing inspiration from the simple motifs and primary colors of a children's book. For this New York premiere, Synapse Associate Director David Travis has been authorized by the original creative team to re- imagine the work to include the creation of a cast of extraordinary full-body puppets. In their ingenious designs, Puppet Designers Emily DeCola and Eric Wright have employed an amazing array of styles-including hand, stick-and-rod, bunraku, masks and stilts. While the cast of motley farm animals includes nesting hens, a herd of sheep and a pack of savage dogs all played by individual puppeteers; it also includes a diminutive stick-and-rod puppet rat that serves as narrator, as well as the seven-and-a-half foot high Boxer, the intrepid cart-horse. The Pigs, most human-like of all, are human-sized. While the themes of Animal Farm are serious, their form in the Synapse production is naïve and childlike. Puppets have the power to immediately transport the audience, both young and old, into a fantasy world and open up their imaginations. These puppets aren't cynical or ironic. Above all, they are honest, earnest, hard-working storytellers. When Napoleon and his death squad of dogs begin the executions, it is both heartbreaking and hilarious, and brings our own emotional distance from similarly shocking contemporaneous events into sharp relief.
|
 |
|
|
 |
©2004 Synapse Productions. All Rights Reserved. |