Players
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Puppet Show: July 14, 2007 :: Narnian Scribe: Crissy Montes
hree minutes before the scheduled time of the puppet show, the stage and backdrop crew were trying to steady our puppet theater and hooking the backdrops to it, with the paint of the “Narnia in Spring” backdrop still wet. Our sound effects person (Zuri, one of our newbies) was looking for an electronics goods store to buy something he needs to connect to his laptop for the sound effects to work. I walked from National Bookstore and back buying supplies for the puppets and stage while trying to contact missing puppeteers and crew with my cellphone on a low battery. When Nick Yarte offered help, all I could say was, “Yung Witch na puppet namin wala pang mukha!”
I expected things to go wrong even in the best of circumstances, and circumstances were not the best. But Kidstation expected a puppet show, and an audience of children had gathered. The show had to go on.
So we performed the best we can, with no prior rehearsal, with whoever was available slipping a puppet on his or her hand at the moment the character was supposed to enter. We contorted strained our arms and our backs behind the puppet theater, cracked our throats shouting as our sound effects person whispered to us that we could not be heard. Characters vanished and reappeared from the scene as puppeteers, with puppets still in hand, pointed to other puppeteers what part of the script we were in.
But amidst the panic and embarrassment, we discovered talents we never realized our org members had – who could paint, who could voice characters. We discovered how lovely a live flute sounds when a real flutist – Philip, the friend of our sound effects person – played for the sound of Tumnus’ pipe. At the end of the show, when we came out from the cramped backstage, and good-sized audience was still there. They clapped for us. Whether they really liked the puppet show, or were just being polite, or were glad the puppet show was done, we don’t know. Neither do we know what they were saying about the show. But just the same, we felt we deserved to clap for ourselves and celebrate.
Circumstances were not the best. We were like the players in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the manual laborers who came together and staged a play – “Tara, perform tayo!”. They knew they didn’t know how. But they performed just the same, and so did we.
When we watch the movies of our fandoms, we only see the finished products – the spectacular effects, the realistic sets and costumes, the swashbuckling fighting moves, the heroes who turn all the women in the audience into jelly. It’s only much later that we realize the not-so-spectacular things that happen behind the scenes. In Lord of the Rings for example, Sean Astin stepped on broken glass barefooted while shooting the lake scene, and losing his temper and sulking when his prosthetics got detached while shooting one of the Sam-Frodo-Gollum scenes. Viggo Mortensen broke his toe when he kicked a helmet and remained in character amidst the pain, and cracked his front tooth when a sword hit his face while shooting the battle of Helm’s Deep. John Rhys-Davies’ face broke out into nasty allergies because of his prosthetics, making him vow never to play a dwarf again. The behind-the-scene documentaries do not even show the days when no untoward incidents happen but no exciting things happen either, the days when their jobs were jobs like yours and mine. And despite the hard work, some movie mistakes remained uncorrected in the final product. Circumstances are not always the best for those who bring to us our fandoms. But they perform, because we are here to watch, because they want to help us celebrate the stories we love.
This, I guess, was what made us push through: we wanted to celebrate a story we love. We were able to do that and more: we got to try something new, we learned a lot, we enjoyed a lot, and got to laugh at ourselves. And, maybe – just maybe – some kid or parent in the audience will read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe because of having watched our puppet show adaptation. Just for these, it was all worth it.