TESLA COILS AND HANDSPRINGS

Tarryn Saunders finds out what on earth an Engineering student is doing as an intern in the world of puppetry

By day, Daniel Martin slaves away at the drawing board doing endless calculations to graduate as an electro- mechanical engineer. By night (well, mostly daytime actually), he interns with Janni Younge at Handpsring Puppet Company. At their workshop, Daniel is busily constructing puppets for Ouroboros, which is doing its second run at Out The Box, after playing at the Baxter Theatre earlier this year.

Most engineers work on mines. Why is he choosing to work with mimes? (Ah, rhymes…)

I asked him why he chose to get involved in the world of puppet theatre, when most of his fellow students are doing stress-analyses on pipes, designing nuts and bolts, having a good read of “Miner’s Weekly” and Ballscrew catalogues (no, not like that). It isn’t really a typical choice.

“In engineering I deal with imaginary things every day, so making the shift into puppetry came quite naturally. I spent my days estimating the compressive forces within bolted joints which will never exist and estimating the maximum speeds of three phase induction motors. Sometimes when I’m bored, I imagine life through the eyes of my micro-processor driven robot (Gertrude) whose only obsession and life’s goal is the endless search for eggs.” Translated from Engineerspeak to Basic Human, that means that the work that engineers do often involves using complex calculations to bring abstract concepts to life. He now looks beyond the mere functions of objects, into the purpose that the object may have. Puppets are functional as representations of things, but when they are manipulated, they have purpose and a story to tell an audience. Yes, folks, puppetry is not for idiots.

He became interested in puppetry after seeing Janni Younge’s puppet and mask work on FTH:K and Conspiracy of Clowns productions of Pictures of You and Quack!. Before that, like most people, he had no clue that there was such a thing as a professional puppet company. But instead of leaving the Engineering Department and running off to the circus to live the life of a minimum- wage bohemian, he worked on how to transfer the technical skills learnt at UCT to the more creative world of Visual Theatre.

As you explore the festival, you will see the incredible amount of technical work that goes behind creating the magical productions. “Coming from an engineering background does help. Building these puppets involves lots of technical work. Although these joints and mechanisms come from the 17^th century, they are ingenious! I’ve definitely learnt a great deal. I enjoy learning all of the different methods of manufacture and was surprised at how light the puppets had to be.” Daniel hopes to become more involved with Handspring Puppet Company after his internship at Out The Box

Ouroboros has been one of my favourite productions this year. Like most Visual Theatre productions, there are many “How the heck do they do that?” moments. Without giving away too much, expect a shadowy flying ship of skeletal phantoms, a man that sheds his skin, a kick-ass Kung Fu fight between a little girl and Death, and an intimate scene between polystyrene lovers.

TESLA COILS AND HANDSPRINGS

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