The Returning – Puppet Theatre

What do you get when you combine American Puppetry Masters Eric Bass and Ines Zeller Bass, and 15 skilled and enthusiastic ‘puppeteers’? The answer is Returning – A collaborative puppet show based on the theme of ballads (which in essence is a song or poem that tells a story).

While there are many different kinds of puppetry, ranging from black theatre and marionettes to Bunraku and body puppets, it is the technical side of the art that is the most important. For in puppetry the puppeteer must merge and become as one with the puppet, so that at the end of the day it is not the puppeteers, but the puppets themselves that are telling the story. And in Returning there were many stories to be told.

VCA puppets peform Cruel Sister (Directed by Sabrina D’Angelo). Song of the Wandering Angus (Directed by Rachael Guy), and Lord Franklin’s Lament (Directed by Annie Forbes), based on a traditional ballad commemorating the loss of Sir John Franklin’s British Arctic Expedition of 1845.

Returning VCA Studio 45, 45 Sturt St, Southbank Dates/Times: Fri 14 & Sat 15, Tue 18– Sat 22 Nov at 7.30pm Sat 15 & 22 Nov at 2pm Cost: $20/$15 Bookings: 03 9685 9256 or vca-puppetry@unimelb.edu.au