Why are people enthralled with puppets, especially children?
The whole idea of the puppet as a metaphor is an intriguing idea. It’s something inanimate that is brought to life, and a reminder of our mortality and immortality. We have an innate human tendency to animate things in our lives. Who are your audiences? Primarily families. I really try to put a whole depth of ideas into the shows so that there is something that will intrigue adults in the audience, as well as children. I don’t want to bore the audience with something that is only on a kid’s level. I think there is a richness to the art form that should be able to appeal to everybody. Do you use it for children with behaviour problems? We have what we call Puppet Power, which are these international conferences where we discuss puppets as a therapeutic medium. The professional therapists were saying, “We don’t want artists dabbling in our activity because there’s a danger in that.” And on the other hand, artists were worried that therapists were dabbling in their art form. The conclusio
