Bedsteads & a Bag of Nails

Rajasthani Marionette Show

Movingstage Marionette Company in Lahore

This article by Juliet Middleton appears in the current issue of Puppet Notebook published by the British Centre of UNIMA.

Each year the extraordinary family Peerzada, of Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop, run an Arts Festival in Lahore. This year Movingstage were invited to perform and after some deliberation decided to accept.

It is never easy to travel anywhere with more than 25 marionettes and accompanying props, special effects, gauzes and backcloths – let alone 8000 miles. The two months before leaving were taken up with arrangements, bargaining and negotiations with the host company, the British Council and the Pakistan High Commission. A deal was struck, but not until the eleventh hour. We needed nerves of steel to sit out the last few days, but it was worth all our efforts.

The Lahore Festival of World Performing Arts is a major cultural event. In 1992, on our second visit to Pakistan, the festival was dedicated to puppetry but the Peerzadas have since expanded and developed their artistic field. For the last eight years the festival has promoted theatre, puppetry, music and dance. Puppetry was well represented this year.

Our first three days were spent constructing a double bridge marionette stage. With limited funding, we could not take our touring stage. We had agreed to construct one on arrival with materials and help provided. The venue was a large stripy tent seating about 300, with a stage at one end. Seven of these tents were set up around a circular red-brick building in Islamic style, which housed two indoor theatres, offices and an outdoor arena (used for music concerts at night). The tents were used for dance, puppetry and drama performances.

Making the stage was a sweaty business. The temperature rose to the mid-30s in the day but dropped as soon as darkness fell at around 6.30 pm. The materials arrived: many lengths of rough timber and a bag of three-inch nails. Fortunately we had two carpenters assigned to us who were willing, eager and flexible. I cannot imagine any English chippy being as phlegmatic faced with such a job. There would have been much shaking of the head and sharp intakes of breath. The carpenters had no power tools. We took cord, hooks, screw eyes, and velcro; our staple gun was a perpetual source of wonder. Three days later we had a stage – of sorts. All the backdrops were mounted, plus masking. However, the day of our first performance was full of agitation and frustration. Lighting and sound were meant to be provided but just did not materialise.

Nevertheless, two hours before the first performance we had some lamps in place, wired on to wooden T-pieces the carpenter made up. It was not possible to trim them accurately onto the stage, focus or spot them up or down. The floods were little better, lying on the floor with gel laid on top that kept frizzling up into little balls. No gel holders or barn doors. The sound was wired up and our CDs ready.

The house was packed. A sofa was placed in the centre of the front row for the main sponsor of the festival – Mobilink, Pakistan. The show was wonderfully received with spontaneous clapping throughout and a crowd of enthusiasts staying behind afterwards to smile, nod and touch the puppets. The frustrations of the day melted away as we realised that these were small compromises and adaptations, made in order to communicate with people and make this important cultural exchange, at a time of unease and conflict between the west and the Islamic world.

We were asked so many times, ‘How do you like our country?’ and ‘How do you find the Pakistani people?’ They are worried about their image in the west, particularly since 7 July, and it was reassuring to agree, in many stilted conversations, that all of us wanted world peace and harmony and that a few extremists, governments and religious leaders were not the voice of masses of people like ourselves.

Every night – unless we were performing – we saw shows. We watched folk puppets, which had their origins in Rajasthan but are now performed by itinerant puppeteers all over Pakistan. There was a strange German show billed as puppetry – in fact a man inside a latex balloon changing shape. In shows from Poland and Argentina, there were actors with objects, with the actors taking centre stage. The Pakistani and Sri Lankan shows were very simply staged (one used two upturned bedsteads with cloth stretched between them) and accompanied by drumming and singing. The traditional characters mainly dance or fight, but the movement is intricate and fascinating, and the singing can refer to local or topical events. Like Punch they can be rebels or stirrers; one man used a swazzle.

Until very recently, dance was banned as a form of entertainment in Pakistan. It is still strongly disapproved of, as is music. Faizaan Peerzada, with his family, aims to change this by promoting both these artforms. He hopes to ‘counter the extremism of the Mullahs who use the mosques to spread ill-will against the west’. The music and dance on offer were stimulating, exciting and absorbing. An excellent French jazz ensemble ‘fused’ with a local Sufi singer to create a memorable evening which delighted a huge local audience as much as visitors from abroad.

The final night was a coup for Faizaan as President Musharraf attended the festival. Security was very tight and the atmosphere tense, but he came. As well as receiving a cheque for earthquake relief from the festival box office, his presence made a clear statement that he is not in step with the hardline Islamic clerics but supports this event and welcomes performers from abroad. His softer line coincides with the vision of the Peerzadas, which aims to foster peace and harmony between Islam and the west, through the arts. It was a privilege to take part.

The current issue of Puppet Notebook has the usual News, Dispatches, Reviews, and Diary sections plus other articles including ‘Smoke & Noise’ – three avant-garde approaches to the puppet by Mischa Twitchin, the concluding section of Puppetry in Rajasthan by Poh Sim Plowright, and a review of Thomas Guthrie’s ‘Winterreise’ by Eleanor Margolies.

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