Life-Size Puppets Perform ‘Woyzeck’ At Dartmouth (VPR)

The Tony Award-winning Handspring Puppet Company from Cape Town, South Africa, has spent the past week in residence at Dartmouth, giving workshops and lectures. The company’s co-directors, Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones, are on campus as Montgomery Fellows.

On September 21 and 22, the puppet company will perform Woyzeck on the Highveld at the Hopkins Center for the Arts. The show “combines puppetry, live acting, and animation in a play re-set in apartheid South Africa in the 1950s,” explains VPR.

Kohler spoke to VPR about the role the audience plays in bringing the puppets to life. “I think their reliance on the imagination of every member of the audience is what makes puppet theater very strong," he says.

Read or listen to the full story, broadcast 9/20/12 by VPR.