Stuffed Puppet Theatre　/　Video letter　/　Report From Neville

ノーバディ（誰でもない）わたしたち

ネヴィル氏の最新作にして最終作の『ユビュ王』。

　私にとっては５年振りのネヴィル作品。ネヴィル氏は今後、後進の育成、演出、作劇に注力。操演者としてはこの公演が最後のパフォーマンスだという。つまり、たった一人で幾つものキャラクターを演じ分ける神業的演技術、人形たちと丁々発止するあの超絶技巧が観られるのはこれが最後なのだ。

　年齢的にも体力的にもきっと限界が近いのだろうと心配したが、開演と同時にそんな老婆心は吹き飛んだ。むしろ以前にもまして無駄な力が抜け、必要最低限のパワーが人形のエネルギーを最大限に引き出している。よりパワフルに、より繊細に。円熟の域とはまさにこのこと。そして、今回のネヴィル氏の役どころがまたニクイ。人形劇において操演者はある意味で人形たちの「神」だ。その「神」であるはずの、そして唯一本物の「バディ」（肉体）を持ったネヴィル氏が、「ノーバディ」（誰でもない）」という名の下僕を演じているのは憎らしいぐらい粋な構成だ。かくして「ノーバディ」に操られる人形たち。否、人形たちに操られる「ノーバディ」と共に、観客は『ユビュ王』の世界に誘われていく。

　権力争いのナンセンスをコミカルにこき下ろしつつ、物語は一気にラストまで駆けていく。敗北したユビュ夫妻は国を追われ、折紙の船に乗って（おそらく）オーストラリア大陸に漂着する（オーストラリアはネヴィル氏の生まれ故郷らしい）。またここでも権力を手にするのか、ユビュ親父？『パートⅡ･･･ユビュ王の帰還』なんて作品を夢想してしまう。それに続く、ネヴィル氏オリジナルのエピローグ。ユビュ夫妻に放逐され、ひとりぼっちになった下僕「ノーバディ」は目の前の王冠に目がくらみ、手を伸ばす……そこで彼の喉元に突きつけられた剣が私には「ダモクレスの剣」に見えた。混迷を極める世界情勢の中、わたしたち名も無き一般市民＝「ノーバディ」の上にも、身に迫る一触即発の危機としての「ダモクレスの剣」が常に垂れ下がっているのではないだろうか？　「無関心はもはや無責任」そんなささやき声が聞こえ、ふと、頭上を見上げてしまった。

演劇ユニットG.com代表・桐朋学園芸術短期大学教授
劇作家・演出家　三浦剛

Click here for English translation !

”Nobody”（no one）is Us

Ubu is Mr. Neville’s latest and last work. This show will be his last performance as a manipulator/puppeteer and from now on, he will be concentrating on directions and dramatisations. In other words, this will be the last time we will be able to see him perform the divine acting technique of playing several characters by himself, and his superb technique of going toe-to-toe with the puppets.
I was concerned he might have almost reached his limit physically as well as in terms of his age, but it was not the case. As soon as the performance started, all my concerns were blown away. I saw no waste of power: he brought out the energy of the puppets. More powerful yet more fragile.
In puppetry, manipulators/puppeteers are in a way, gods for puppets. It is a very cool structure that Mr. Neville, who is supposed to be the “god” and the only one with a real “body”, plays the role of a servant named “Nobody”. Thus, the audiences are drawn into the world of “Ubu” with the puppets manipulated by “Nobody,” or rather, “Nobody” being manipulated by the puppets.
The story quickly comes to an end, comically criticising power struggles. The defeated Ubu and his lady flee the country, sailing with Origami ships to (maybe) Australia (Mr. Nevilles’ home country). Dismissed by Ubu and his lady, the servant “Nobody” is left alone. When he saw the crown in front of him, he was blinded by greed. As soon as he tried to grab it, the sword was pointed to his throat. I felt as if it were the sword of Damocles. We live in the extreme turmoil of the world. Perhaps, the sword of Damocles as imminent crisis, always dangling over on us, insignificant, ordinary citizens, that is, “Nobody”.

Theatre Unit G.com Representative / Toho Gakuen College of Drama and Music Professor
Playwright/directer, Go Miura

*Translated by Iku Rooks Nakai

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ネヴィル・トランターの魔術

　ネヴィル・トランターの「ユビュ王」を観る。

　１９世紀末に初演したときには誹謗をあびたという、フランスの作家ジャリのセンセーショナルな戯曲が原作。私は原作を読んでいないが、シェークスピアのマクベスや、王位簒奪者の物語という伝統的なテーマが下敷きにあることは理解できる。ネヴィル氏はこの物語をシンプルな舞台で、一人で10体以上の人形を使い、声を一人で見事に使い分け、「権力と人間」、「野心をもった人間の恐ろしさ」を浮かび上がらせた。

　人形劇だからこそ、人間の残酷さ、醜悪さなどのテーマのみが抽出されて直接伝わってくるのだと感じた。なぜだろう？

　それは、ネヴィル氏の芝居には、生身の人間の俳優では表せない人形劇のマジックが多くあるからだ。

　ネヴィル氏と人形との関係は、人形への絶対的な信頼からなっている。人形は、人間よりも素晴らしい俳優だとネヴィル氏は信じている。それを証明するためには、卓越した人形操作の技術がある。それは踊りの振り付けのように計算されたものであるが、観客はそれに引き込まれ、人形に感情移入ができる。人形にすべてを託し、語らせるが、そこに自分も演技者としてかかわっていく。

　ネヴィル氏の人形は、目線の動きが重要で、動きには無駄がない。人形は、ネヴィル氏と対話し、一体化する。操作者と操作されるものという関係ではなく両方が行き来する。2体の人形を同時に持ちながら、自分も演技者になっているが、観客は混乱しない。　人形を操作しながら、人形にも操作される（人形の反応を即座に受け入れている）が、それが自然にみえるというのがネヴィル氏のマジックだ。おそらく、現在のような形での出遣いで芝居をおこなう以前に、けこみを使った人形でもかなり研究していたのではないかと推察される。そして俳優としての卓越した能力が根底にあると思う。

　人形劇の魅力は、生身の俳優でみるより、感情が、人形というフィルターを通じて伝わってきて、本質的なものだけが見えてくるというところにあると思う。また人形なのでどんな形にも造形することができて、大袈裟な仕草なども可能だ。ユビュ王のように、人間の醜さや猥雑さ、エロチシズムがテーマの芝居では人間の俳優が演じたら、あまりに生々しすぎる。ユビュ王の形象をつくるにも限界があるのではないか。ネヴィル氏のユビュ王や夫人は醜悪でもあるが、滑稽でもあった（ちなみにロシアの皇帝は私のロシア人の友人にそっくりで笑えた）。

　人形美術の卓越さ、演技のマジック（ネヴィル氏は現代の巫女とも呼べるように帰依する力が強いが、そこには大変なテクニック、演技の研究、計算の裏付がある））で、ユビュ王は見事な芝居になった。

　前述したように私は原作を読んでいないので何ともいえないが、ネヴィル氏の芝居を私は独立した彼の芝居として観た。そして「ユビユ王」がまさに、現在の、戦争があり、分断されている世界を見事に予言していたことに驚嘆した。自分がロシアの専門家だからかもしれないが、独裁者に振り回されているこの時代に、なぜ人は権力に憑りつかれるのか、なぜ争いは起こるのかということを象徴的にこの芝居は示していると感じた。ネヴィル氏のように、社会的なテーマを人形劇で扱い、しかも哲学的に人形によって凝縮して表現できる人形劇役者は世界にもあまりいないのではないか。セリフや人形の動きに笑える箇所も多かったが、ある意味、怖い芝居であると思った。舞台中央に台座に置かれた王冠は象徴的だった。ネヴィル氏が「演じる」従者ノーボディは、ユビュ王がいなくなったあとも次に現れる独裁者になりうる存在だ。私は、ノーボディーは芝居の中で狂言回しのように感じた。人形で演じられる人物たちを影で実は操っており、それを演じているのはネヴィル氏―幾重にも仕掛けがあるように思う。公演プログラムに掲載されていたハビエル・ロペス・ピノンの劇評で、ユビュ王とハンナ・アーレントが提唱した「悪の凡庸性」を結びつけているのは正しい。ネヴィル氏は、この芝居で誰でも独裁者になれるということに警鐘を鳴らしているからだ。

　ネヴィル氏はこの作品で俳優としては引退をされるとのことだが、今後、演出家、教育者としてぜひ活躍してもらいたい。ネヴィル氏が人形劇に携わるまでの経緯や自らのメソッドについて本を書かれたら興味深いと思う。

　「人形劇役者の手は人形の心だ」という言葉があるが、まさにネヴィル氏の手によって観客は魔法にかけられるのである。 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

岩原　宏子

東京外国語大学外国語学部ロシア語学科卒業、同大学院スラブ系言語研究科ロシア語専攻修士課程修了。
専門はロシアの児童文学。

Click here for English translation !

/　The Magic of Neville Tranter

　Watch Neville Tranter’s “King Ubu”.
　The play is based on the sensational play by the French writer Jarry, which was vilified when it premiered at the end of the 19th century. Although I have not read the original play, I understand that it is based on the traditional themes of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and the story of the usurper to the throne. Mr. Neville has taken this story to a simple stage, used more than 10 puppets and a single voice, and has successfully brought to life “power and man” and “the horror of man’s ambition”.

　I felt that because it was a puppet show, only the themes of human cruelty and ugliness were extracted and conveyed directly to the audience. Why is this?

　It is because Mr. Neville’s plays have a lot of puppet magic that cannot be expressed by live human actors.

　Mr. Neville’s relationship with his puppets consists of absolute trust in them. He believes that puppets are better actors than people. To prove this, he has the exceptional skill to manipulate puppets. It is as calculated as the choreography of a dance, but the audience is drawn into it, and they are emotionally invested in the puppet. He lets the puppets do all the talking, but he is also involved as a performer.

　Neville’s puppets have an important eye movement, and their movements are not in vain. The puppet communicates with Mr. Neville and becomes one with him. The puppets are not the operator and the manipulated, but both come and go, and the audience is not confused, even though they are also the performers while holding the two puppets at the same time.　Neville’s magic is that while he manipulates the puppets, he is also manipulated by the puppets (he immediately accepts the puppets’ reactions), and it appears to be natural. It can be inferred that Mr. Neville probably studied a great deal with kekomi puppets before he began performing in the current style of dehaired puppetry. I also believe that his outstanding ability as an actor lies at the root of his work.

　The charm of puppetry lies in the fact that the emotions are conveyed through the filter of the puppet, and only the essential things become visible, rather than through the eyes of live actors. Also, because they are puppets, they can be shaped into any shape, and exaggerated gestures are possible. A play like King Ubu, whose theme is human ugliness, obscenity, and eroticism, would be too lifelike if performed by human actors. There must be a limit to creating a figurative representation of King Ubu. Mr. Neville’s King Ubu and his wife were both hideous and funny (by the way, the Russian czar looked so much like my Russian friend it was funny).

　The excellence of the puppet art and the magic of the acting (Mr. Neville has a strong devotional power that could be called a modern-day priestess, but there is a great deal of technique, acting research, and calculation behind it) made King Ubu a brilliant play.

　As I mentioned earlier, I have not read the original play, so I cannot say for sure, but I saw Mr. Neville’s play as an independent play of his, and I was amazed at how well “King Ubilles” predicted our current war-torn and divided world. And I marveled at the fact that “King Ubiyu” was exactly the kind of brilliant prediction of our current, war-torn, divided world. Perhaps it is because I am a Russian specialist, but I felt that the play symbolically showed why people are possessed by power and why conflict occurs in this age of dictatorship. There are not many puppeteers in the world who can deal with social themes in puppetry and condense them philosophically with puppets like Mr. Neville. Although there were many funny parts in the dialogue and the movements of the puppets, I thought the play was scary in a sense. The crown placed on a pedestal in the center of the stage was symbolic. Mr. Neville’s “acting” squire, Nobody, could be the next dictator to appear after King Ubu is gone. I felt that Nobody was like a rabble-rouser in the play. He is actually manipulating the characters played by the puppets in the shadows, and Mr. Neville is the one who is playing the role – it seems like there are many layers of tricks. Javier Lopez Pinon, in his review of the play in the performance program, is right to link King Ubu to the “banality of evil” proposed by Hannah Arendt. This is because Mr. Neville is sounding the alarm that anyone can be a dictator in this play.

　Although Mr. Neville is retiring as an actor after this production, we hope that he will continue to work as a director and educator. It would be interesting to see him write a book about how he got involved in puppetry and his methods.

　There is a saying that “a puppeteer’s hands are the puppet’s heart,” and Mr. Neville’s hands are exactly what cast a spell on the audience.

Hiroko Iwahara

Graduated from the Department of Russian Language, Faculty of Foreign Studies, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and received her M.A. in Russian Language from the Graduate School of Slavic Languages, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
Specialized in Russian children’s literature.

*Translated with DeepL.com

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Report from Neville Tranter

On the 29th of July 2024 Wim and I arrived at Narita Airport with our hand luggage, a folding wheelchair, and four large suitcases carrying the props and puppets of our UBU performance. It was the beginning of a five week tour with fourteen performances and six workshops in Iida, Sapporo, Nagoya, Kagawa, and Tokyo. The tour had been organised by Puk Theatre in Tokyo and Haruhiko was there to welcome us and bring us to our hotel.This tour was special because it would not only be the last tour of our UBU but also my last performances as a puppeteer. 

I had begun training as a puppeteer in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia in 1975 with the Bilbar Puppet Theatre. Bill and Barbara Turnbull were my teachers and mentors and I am forever thankful to them both for awakening in me a quest and a love for puppetry. I wanted only one thing in life and that was to become a puppeteer. I had trained as an actor for four years and this training would play an important role in my work with puppets. For almost fifty years I have been performing with puppets for adults. Most of that work has been solo, just me alone on stage with my puppets. I have designed and built all my puppets. I chose to perform for adults because I felt that puppets could express adult themes. And this has been the main aim in my work. To prove not only to myself that it is possible to create puppet theatre for adults but also to convince adult audiences that it is possible. This motivation is what has been the motor behind all my work. And of all the different shows I have performed, Frankenstein, Schicklgruber, Macbeth, Salomé, Mathilde, to name but a few, I have always tried to give my shows actual themes, quite often placing them in a classical setting. And this is also the reason I chose to make my own version of the classic play UBU ROI written in 1896 by Alfred Jarry. The original play was a farce and became famous because it was the very first absurd play. I had made comical plays and tragic plays or a mix of comedy and tragedy but never an absurd play. And the criteria for me was, how do you make an absurd play? That was the challenge, and the question I asked myself was, how do you do that? How do I make an absurd play using puppets? From that moment on curiosity takes over and then I start finding out how to make such a play. And I will only be satisfied when I have achieved it. This process can sometimes take years to accomplish. This is the road my UBU would take, to the very last performances in Japan. In 2018 I directed UBU ROI for the first time in Vilnius in Lithuania with four puppeteers from the State Puppet Theatre. In this version I rewrote the original play written in 1896 by Alfred Jarry. I also designed the puppets which were constructed by the puppet makers of the State Puppet Theatre. I wanted to make a solo version of UBU but I had to wait another two years because to write a solo version it was necessary to have a totally different concept of the play, including the characters and story line.

My UBU was finally created in the beginning of the Covid time in October 2020 and the premiere was in a small 50 seat theatre in Magnonville in France. The show would not be performed again until the end of the Covid time two years later. 

I performed UBU all over Europe. The show was received very well and I was very glad. It was at this moment I decided that UBU would also be my very last solo show. I had been having physical problems with my legs which made it more difficult for me standing while performing. 

When Puk invited us to perform UBU in Japan both Wim and I felt very honoured. But because of my leg problems, Wim and I then asked Puk if they could build the structure for the scenery of UBU as well as two bar stools to help support me during performing. For Puk it was no problem at all. Upon arrival in Tokyo the construction and bar stools had been built and ready for the tour. Once the tour began we wondered how the show would come across to our audiences. The show was in English and with Japanese subtitles. We did not have to worry. UBU was very well received by our Japanese audiences which made us very happy. In every city we performed I also gave workshops. A one day workshop, two two day workshops and finally in Tokyo a four day workshop for two different groups of participants. All workshops were very successful and very inspiring, not only for me but for all of those who participated. This five week tour in Japan seemed to fly as far as time was concerned. It was very intense and full of many wonderful moments. Wim and I are very thankful for the kindness and dedication of the Puk team for making this final tour (my final tour) of UBU a success. Wim and I also decided we would donate all the UBU puppets to Puk and maybe…just maybe, I will return to Japan to direct four young Japanese puppeteers to perform my UBU. To all who helped us and made us very welcome in Japan, Wim and I say ARRIGATO and tot ziens!

Wim Sitvast
Neville Tranter

Stuffed Puppet Theatre 

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