Puppet master!
ALL animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. That’s the famous line from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, a novella first published nearly 80 years ago but which could easily be applied today.
“It’s a timeless story, terrifyingly so,” says Toby Olié, who has designed more than 30 puppets to represent the animals in a new stage version, which receives its world premiere at Birmingham Rep.
“The message has become even more relevant, again. We see the animal leaders rewriting the rule books to suit themselves and we think ‘Yeah, that’s in the news every single day now with our government’. It’s still very true that all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.”
Toby is one of the UK’s leading puppet masters, whose first professional job was playing the rear end of a horse. He helped to bring Joey to extraordinary life in the hit worldwide smash War Horse. He’s since worked on productions including Running Wild, The Elephantom and Goodnight Mr Tom.
Now he’s creating a dynamic new production of Animal Farm with Birmingham Rep and The Children’s Theatre Partnership. It runs at the Rep from January 22 to February 5 before a national tour which includes Coventry’s Belgrade and Wolverhampton’s Grand theatres.
Orwell’s 1945 story tells of farm animals who rebel against their human owner, hoping to create a society where all animals are free and equal. But they end up as a dictatorship under a pig called Napoleon, said to represent Stalin.
Talking about this innovative production of Animal Farm, Toby declares: “There’s been nothing like this before in the theatre. It’s a unique theatrical experience.”
It’s new in terms of having so many central characters played by puppets, and in the way the animals communicate – an innovation which the producers want to come as a surprise to audiences.
“Having more than 30 central puppet characters hasn’t happened before,” says Toby. “There are lots of puppets in The Lion King, for example, but most of them are in the background rather than driving the narrative. I’ve never worked with so many puppets on stage and it’s like running a theatre marathon to coordinate them all.”
The life-size puppets range from a cart horse, pigs and sheep down to pigeons and chickens, via a cat, a goat and dogs.
The animals are brought to life by 14 puppeteers who swap animals between scenes. The larger puppets
Having more than 30 central puppet characters hasn’t happened before, name in here ‘THERE’S BEEN NOTHING BEFORE LIKE THIS IN THEATRE,’ SAYS THE CREATOR OF THE PUPPETS IN A DYNAMIC NEW VERSION OF ANIMAL FARM. HE TALKS TO ROZ LAWS
need three people to operate them – one person on each pair of legs and another on the head. The sheep and pigs have two people, with one becoming their back legs and then working the front legs, while another operates the head. Smaller animals need one puppeteer.
The puppets are made from a dense, flexible foam called Plastazote, covered with hessian and painted, but not with naturalistic skin or fur.
Toby says: “I made some prototypes early on with simple materials and the director and designer said they liked that – they wanted to see all the mechanics. That’s replicated in the set, which is simple but cleverly uses lighting to convey if we’re inside or outside. We’re reliant on the audience using their imagination and suspending their disbelief. You can see how the trick works, but you still believe in the magic.
“We’ve explored how animals show their emotions. A chicken can tilt its head, a cart horse can convey how hard it’s working by its breath rate and a guard dog can flatten its ears to show it’s angry. Even the intensity with which an animal puts down its hoof can convey so much.
“When an animal dies, it comes as a shock. It’s like when the lights go up at the end of the school disco and the magic disappears. The audience has given it a heart and a brain to bring it to life, but when it dies it instantly becomes a puppet again.”
The stage production has made some adaptations to the book, including changing the sex of one of the pigs.
“We’ve turned Clover the horse into a dairy cow,” says Toby. “We’ve combined Benjamin the donkey and Muriel the goat into Benjamin the goat. And we’ve made one of the main three pigs, Squealer, female to have a more representative group.
“We’ve been inspired by the fact it’s not a long book. It’s short and sharp and packs a punch, and we’re keen for the stage show to do that as well. It feels very intense and brutal and we wanted to maintain that in the script.
“It’s really exciting to have a challenging and more adult story told with puppets. It’s considered a children’s form of entertainment but I want to engage more adults. I’m
obsessed with Pixar, which makes stories that all ages can relate to.”
Toby has loved puppets from a young age, sparked by Sesame Street and The Muppets. After watching The Sound of Music, he made the Lonely Goatherd scene out of toilet rolls and cereal boxes.
Now he’s in great demand across the world. Last year he directed a Japanese musical over Zoom for A Robot in the Garden, based on the book by Birmingham author Deborah Install. Next month he’s hoping to fly to Japan to direct the puppets in a new show of Spirited Away.
Toby made the puppets for a new production of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe which plays Birmingham’s Alexandra Theatre in March, and in the summer he’s bringing 101 Dalmatians to Regents Park Open Air Theatre.
“The art form is really being embraced and I’m delighted there are so many shows with puppets on at the moment.”
Animal Farm is at Birmingham Rep from January 22 to February 5. For tickets ring 0121 236 4455 or go to Birmingham-rep.co.uk