Mathilde

The Stuffed Puppet Theatre

Company
The Australian Neville Tranter is one of the world’s best-known puppeteers. He founded The Stuffed Puppet Theatre in 1976. His works always feature life-size moving-mouth puppets and 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.

Performance
Frail and dishevelled, the 102-year-old Mathilde grasps onto a handrail and wearily does her exercises. It’s high time to go, especially as a party is being organised in her honour at the old people’s home. But Mathilde has more important things on her mind: she is waiting for a sign from another time. Her former lover made a promise and she won’t go until he keeps it. The triptych Mathilde, of which parts 1 and 2 are being shown together for the first time, portrays Mathilde and people that are connected to her. It is a story about hope and remembrance, about the fear of dying, about letting go, and about talking as a proof of existence, as a way of assuring oneself of one’s strengths and power of imagination.

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Director, Costumes: Neville Tranter
Co-director: Tim Velraeds
Puppeteers: Neville Tranter, Wim Sitvast

When: Nov. 1st 2012, 7.00 & 9.00 p.m.
Where: T-Werk, Schiffbauergasse 4E
Entrance fee: Price category B
Length: 40 min
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