UBU - Stuffed Puppet Theatre | Neville Tranter

Poppenspeler Neville Tranter staat al 40 jaar op het podium en heeft wereldwijde faam. Hij heeft keer op keer laten zien dat poppenspel niet per se lief en grappig is, maar bij uitstek het harde en rauwe kan uitbeelden. Op vrijdag 5 april speelt hij zijn allerlaatste voorstelling in Amsterdam in Plein Theater!

Zo ook in zijn meest recente solostuk: “Ubu”, een bewerking van “Ubu Roi” van Alfred Jarry uit 1896.

Het stuk toont de opkomst en ondergang van de egocentrische despoot Ubu en zijn vrouw. Ubu is impulsief, gewelddadig en obsceen. Domheid is zijn grootste kracht; moraliteit en deugd spelen geen rol. Overeenkomsten met sommige heersers in de wereld van vandaag zijn helaas onvermijdelijk.

“Het gaat over Russen, ook Donald Trump komt langs. Ik stuur echter geen politieke boodschappen. Het hangt altijd af van wat het publiek wil begrijpen”, zegt de kunstenaar, die sinds 1978 in Nederland woont. “Mijn Ubu eindigt met goed nieuws: zelfs de Ubus van deze wereld regeren niet eindeloos. Maar er is ook slecht nieuws: andere Ubus zullen vroeger of later volgen.”

Tekst, vormgeving en spel: Neville Tranter | Artistieke en technische ondersteuning: Wim Sitvast
Leeftijd: 12+ | Engelstalig

UBU - Stuffed Puppet Theatre | Neville Tranter

Puppeteer Neville Tranter has been on stage for 40 years and has worldwide fame. He has shown time and time again that puppetry is not necessarily sweet and funny, but can portray the hard and raw.

This is also the case in his most recent solo piece: “Ubu”, an adaptation of “Ubu Roi” by Alfred Jarry from 1896.

The play shows the rise and fall of the self-centered despot Ubu and his wife. Ubu is impulsive, violent and obscene. Stupidity is his greatest strength; morality and virtue play no role. Resemblance with some rulers in today's world are unfortunately inevitable.

“It's about Russians, Donald Trump also comes along. However, I do not send political messages. It always depends on what the audience wants to understand,” says the artist, who has lived in the Netherlands since 1978. “My Ubu ends with good news: even the Ubus of this world do not rule forever. But there is also bad news: other Ubus will follow sooner or later.”

Concept & acting, Neville Tranter | Artistic & technical assistance, Wim Sitvast
Age: 12+ | Language: English

Stuffed Puppet Theatre | Neville Tranter

The puppet master Neville Tranter is one of the world’s best-known puppeteers. His works always manage to be poetic, irreverent, virtuous and radical at the same time. Combined with black humour and finely drawn characters, they also balance dramatic force with enchanting subtlety.

Neville Tranter (1955, Toowoomba, Australia) completed his drama studies with the US director Robert Gist in Queensland in 1976, having also trained with the Billbar Puppet Theatre. He founded the Stuffed Puppet Theatre that same year. After the Stuffed Puppet Theatre had taken part in the Festival of Fools in Amsterdam, in 1978, Neville Tranter moved to the Netherlands, where his visual and emotional adult puppet theatre developed to assume its present form. In his own brutal, ruthless, but poetic way, he confronts the audience with their fears and dreams, urges and desires, personified by what are often life size talking puppets. Combining a minimal decor with sophisticated music, lighting and sound, using the oldest devices of the theatre as well as state of the art technology, solo on stage, with nothing but his puppets plus a number of assistants behind the scenes, Neville Tranter is capable of evoking images that the audience will not forget for a long time. His combination of down to earth humour, deadly seriousness and virtuoso puppetry has already made permanent converts of many who had presumed puppetry had nothing to offer them.

Within his group Stuffed Puppet Neville Tranter developed his typical style of visual theatre with human size puppets.

www.stuffedpuppet.nl

Queering Puppets Festival Amsterdam

Van 3 t/m 7 april presenteren Plein Theater en Cat Smits Company het Queering Puppets Festival Amsterdam!

Queering Puppets Festival Amsterdam biedt sinds 2022 een podium aan genre-overstijgende vormen van beeldend theater, objecttheater, poppenspel én queer perspectieven. In de safe space die het poppenspel creëert, kan iedereen zijn wie hij, zij, hen wil. Plein Theater en Cat Smits Company trotseren de norm met dit festival vol bonte visuele uitspattingen. Queering Puppets is LHBTIQA+ friendly, feministisch, activistisch en bovenal schitterend in eigenwijsheid! In deze derde editie is het thema Weapons of the weak.

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