War. Repression. Climate disaster. In the 24/7 news cycle, these global crises form the backdrop of everyday life. There is danger of overwhelm and compassion fatigue: how can we make sense of, and respond to, the suffering of millions of people around us?Fortunately, we have art. And, in particular, Handspring Puppet Company. For four decades, Handspring’s creations have told the stories that need telling by connecting with audiences on a deep, emotional level. In fact, founders Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones often refer to puppets as “empathy machines.”
Many people associate Handspring with the beloved character Joey in War Horse, the National Theatre’s internationally acclaimed production, which was seen by more than 8 million people in 11 countries. Audiences responded with huge empathy as they experienced the horrors of combat in World War I through Joey’s eyes.
More recently, the puppet Little Amal captured hearts and minds across the world. Her appearances call global attention to the plight of refugees, many of them children. Amal has travelled over 6,000 miles to 100 towns and cities in 15 countries and has been welcomed by more than a million people on the street and tens of millions online. At the time of writing, Amal is walking across the United States in one of the largest free, public festivals ever created. In recognition of their contribution to the art of puppetry, Kohler and Jones were awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Toronto in June 2023. A few weeks later, Douglas Knowledge Partners had the pleasure of hosting a panel discussion to celebrate this honour and to unveil the new Handspring website at our London office.
“Breath is a universal language. And the rhythm of that language is an expression of our thoughts and emotions.”
— Dr. Basil Jones, co-founder Handspring Puppet Company
David Lan, CBE – former artistic director of London’s Young Vic Theatre and producer of The Walk Productions that commissioned Little Amal – led an evening of conversation about a big question: why is puppetry so powerful now? Kohler and Jones were joined by Cariad Astles, head of puppetry at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and Mervyn Millar, director of Significant Object, a company specialising in puppetry for theatre and motion capture.
Lan opened the discussion by sharing an anecdote about his work with Handspring. “About four years ago, I asked Adrian and Basil if they could envisage and design a large puppet that could walk from the Turkish/Syrian border right across Europe to the UK. And they immediately said yes! There was only a brief moment of thought, followed by the question: When you say big … how big?”
This extraordinary, 3.5-metre-tall puppet went on to become a global phenomenon. Lan recalled that each time Amal set out on her walk in a new town, the journey began with a breath. “Puppetry director Enrico Dau Yang Wey looks at the puppeteer, who is for that moment Amal’s body, mind, and heart, and says ‘breathe’. The puppeteer breathes, and off they go.”
“Puppets invoke a sense of something greater. Amal is the perfect example of this. She is not just a character, she is the experience of child refugees, and also our hopes and aspirations for refugees. All of these things are incorporated in this animated body which represents our feelings, our consciousness, our thoughts.”
— Cariad Astles, head of puppetry at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
Giving puppets the ability to breathe is a key innovation that Handspring brought to the art form. Lan asked Kohler to explain its significance. “We consciously discovered this element in a production where an opera singer, a puppeteer, and a puppet were all visible to the audience,” said Kohler. “It just wasn’t working. We realised that opera singers are trained to hide their breath from the audience. Once we discovered where they take that breath and synchronised their breath with the puppet’s breathing, then the performance came together.”This extraordinary, 3.5-metre-tall puppet went on to become a global phenomenon. Lan recalled that each time Amal set out on her walk in a new town, the journey began with a breath. “Puppetry director Enrico Dau Yang Wey looks at the puppeteer, who is for that moment Amal’s body, mind, and heart, and says ‘breathe’. The puppeteer breathes, and off they go.”
Jones expanded on the importance of breath, not only for puppets to seem alive but also to convey emotion. “Breath is a universal language. And the rhythm of that language is an expression of our thoughts and emotions. We all read this language constantly; we all understand it, but we never talk about it. A sharp breath in, a long exhale, shallow breathing—these all tell you what a character is feeling or thinking."
One might assume that an audience wouldn’t notice tiny breathing movements, especially from the back of a large theatre, but much of the magic of Handspring’s performances comes from the smallest details and micromovements. “If you enrol your audience as hyper-perceptive (and you light what you do well), they will become hyper-perceptive and hyper-sensitive. They will see that tiny breath; they will read it and gain a deeper understanding of the character,” said Jones.
“The magic of puppetry has something to do with the audience being on the knife edge of not knowing whether the puppet will or will not breathe or will or will not come to life. At any moment, the illusion of life could be shattered. And there is almost a religious aspect to this; we know that puppets were originally used in funerals, ceremonies, and similar rituals: this kind of living between the breath is exciting.”
— Cariad Astles, head of puppetry at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
“As long as the puppeteer is seen as an assistant to the main character, they don’t exist … the puppeteer makes him or herself as uninteresting as possible, so all the audience has to look at is the puppet.”
— Dr. Adrian Kohler, co-founder Handspring Puppet Company
When it comes to the illusion of life, Handspring’s creations straddle a contradiction: just as the puppets need to come alive during a performance, the real-life puppeteers who are visible to the audience need to become invisible. Kohler explained that Handspring works in the Japanese tradition of revealed technology, where the mechanics of the puppet are visible. “As long as the puppet moves well and represents life sufficiently well, the audience will believe in it. Our puppeteers visibly assist the puppet to do difficult things and make precise movements. The trick is to get the audience to not see it. As long as the puppeteer is seen as an assistant to the main character, they don’t exist."
Making the puppeteers become invisible takes skill. “Importantly, the puppeteer is never allowed to look at the audience or make eye contact – the puppeteer makes him or herself as uninteresting as possible, so all the audience has to look at is the puppet,” added Kohler.
Millar noted a fascinating phenomenon that he has observed in audiences’ responses to puppets. “I was in the audience of a show that I directed, and when the puppets entered the stage, people moved in their seats – they engaged differently with what was happening on stage, you could see it happening, physically.” This prompted Millar to delve into the neuroscience behind audience response. “I went to science to find out what happens when we look at a moving puppet – and guess what – the research finds that there is a bit in your brain that recognises when something seems to be moving with intention. This is not an analysis or a judgement, it’s faster than that. Your brain instantly knows this is an important thing; it is a creature; it has intelligence; it has agency."
Perhaps this deep, unconscious human response accounts for puppetry’s power as an art form. “Puppets can get to you quickly, they do a kind of shortcut to our emotions because we respond instinctively,” said Millar. “And when a puppet artist tackles a political subject, they can get straight to the emotions of the audience."
In response to Millar’s account of puppetry being able to delve into serious subject matter, Lan posed the question: can we generalise and say that puppets have the ability to say the things humans cannot say? Jones agreed, and described how Handspring has taken puppetry from a medium for children’s entertainment to one that broaches social and political themes. “We grew up in a country where politics was part of our blood. It was a very, very difficult time in our history. Adrian and I had been hiding from the army in Botswana for three years where we were engaged in children’s theatre. But we found it quite restricting.”
When the pair returned to South Africa, Adrian chose a play from a banned book of African plays, which became Handspring’s first piece of puppet theatre for adults. The highly controversial Episodes of an Easter Rising was performed in Cape Town in 1985. It told the story of two lesbian women on an isolated farm in the Eastern Transvaal who are confronted by the arrival of a wounded activist. “We were bringing politics and gay politics together on stage. I don’t think there had been a play in South Africa up until that point that did that (albeit a stage with puppets on it),” explained Jones.
Millar built on the notion of political messaging by suggesting that puppetry is a communal act that provides authentic experiences. “Today, we are short of things that are honest and extraordinary. There’s a lot of slippage in our understanding of reality and knowing what we can trust. When you watch this particular style of puppetry, you have a sense of communing. There is something about that communal act of the audience imagining something and being guided by the writers, the artists, and the performers that is extraordinary,” said Millar. "And let’s not spend the evening glossing over the sheer sculptural quality of Handspring’s work. These are works of art that are coming alive.”
“Puppets can get to you quickly, they do a kind of shortcut to our emotions because we respond instinctively. And when a puppet artist tackles a political subject, they can get straight to the emotions of the audience.”
— Mervyn Millar, director of Significant Object
“Puppets invoke a sense of something greater,” noted Astles. “Amal is the perfect example of this. She is not just a character, she is the experience of child refugees, as well as our hopes and aspirations for refugees. All of these things are incorporated into this animated body, which represents our feelings, our consciousness, and our thoughts. She provokes so many things—in the here and now, the breath, and the movement—but simultaneously being resonant with the wider world.”
When it came time to wrap up the evening, Lan fielded questions from the audience. Rachael De Renzy Channer noted how the fact that puppeteers need to become invisible during a performance has parallels in the world of business leadership. “The panel has spoken tonight about being seen and unseen – I work in the leadership industry, and it’s something we think about often. Leaders need to be seen. But they also need to be unseen to allow others to act. Similarly, what we’ve discussed about breath and mindfulness is relevant to leadership. When we get leaders in a room together, we often teach them to use their breath, to be mindful of others, so that people have the space to hear each other.”
Kohler brought the evening to a close with a response to DeRenzy Channer’s observation. “In these meetings – with your colleagues and leaders and all sorts of dynamics of being seen and unseen—perhaps ask yourselves: Where is the puppet? Could the puppet be the idea that you are talking about, that everyone is there to animate in some way?”
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Since the panel discussion evening, Handspring has continued to engage and connect with audiences all over the world, providing insight into the topics that matter most. The company’s most recent production, The Life and Times of Michael K, brings the marginalised centre stage and speaks to issues of war, displacement, discrimination, and loss. This rendition of J.M. Coetzee’s profound South African novel has garnered international acclaim. In fact, in August, The New York Times described The Life and Times of Michael K as “the standout Fringe show” of the 2023 Edinburgh Festival.
What became clear at the panel discussion is that puppetry serves as a unique platform for conveying complex ideas, providing a voice for the unspoken, and offering authentic and transformative experiences in a world hungry for genuine connections.
