The Motion of Puppets(36)
“Seems reasonable,” Delacroix said. “Nothing I haven’t seen or worked with before.”
“That’s good,” said the Quatre Mains, as he clapped him on the back, raising a cloud of dust and dander. “We have thirteen blackout scenes along with the prologue and epilogue and a few in-between monologues, which needn’t concern you much. And one of the scenes involves only two characters that Finch and Stern have created out of their stormy imaginations. So, an even dozen for you to learn. I propose we take on the six most difficult before our supper, and when you return, you can pick up the rest, toot sweet as they say. Not too many lines, and you can be on book since nobody in the audience will be able to see you most of the time. As a matter of fact, in one skit, ‘Lassie, Go Home,’ all you need do is bark like a dog. You can bark, can’t you?”
“Arf, arf,” said Delacroix.
“Oh no,” said Finch. “Bark like a collie.”
“Woof, woof.”
“C’est bon,” the Deux Mains said. “Shall we get to it?”
The rehearsal lasted well into the night, a swirl of talk and motion that left Kay baffled. The Deux Mains handled her most of the time, carrying her to a small ledge built into an opening of a tall flat where Kay sat, legs dangling over the edge, facing a sea of empty chairs. When the Deux Mains addressed the stage, she moved the lever behind the puppet’s head so that her words, sotto voce, appeared to be coming out of Kay’s mouth. And then Kay would be ducked away and laid to rest on the floor as the other puppets started another sketch. She enjoyed playing both the narrator and Beth in the Little Women skit with the Three Sisters and a matronly figure who was vaguely familiar. It all happened so quickly and furiously that she could not be sure of any part, much less the whole, of the show. The giants moved like dancers, their hands in constant motion, backs bent, heads hidden, slipping on the glove puppets, twisting the sticks and wires to make the marionettes flit across the stage, talking, laughing, swearing when they made a mistake. The Quatre Mains lorded over the chaos, calling out the titles for each new blackout sketch, hollering up to the invisible person manning the lights over a missed cue. In the end, all the puppeteers collapsed to the floor, congratulating one another on their performances, and after putting away all the puppets in the backstage room, they shut off the lights for the night.
Exhausted, Kay could hear them retreating and was grateful for the peace and quiet. Far from the inner sanctum, a door closed and was locked. She heard a giggle in the darkness. A small lamp burst into brightness. She sat up, surprised that she could move on her own, and saw Mr. Firkin with his fingers on the switch.
“Mes amis, mesdames et messieurs, welcome!”
Around her the puppets awakened and rose.
12
“I’m dead,” Kay said. “But you already knew that, having read the book.”
Out in the dark, a single person gasped. The audience was settling into place, waiting, saying entertain us, make us laugh or cry, willing themselves to be carried away in the promised dream. They listened for what she had to say, words conjured by the unseen voice, and watched the puppet manipulated by invisible hands, until at last they believed. The Deux Mains lifted Kay’s hand to her forehead to shield her eyes from the stage lights. In that simple gesture, she became real, and they were hers.
“I am your host, Beth March,” she said. “And this is ‘A Little Little Women and Other Puppet Tales.’ You know the story of the four March sisters: Meg, Jo, Amy, and me. Well, I’m the sister who bites the dust. No need to feel sorry for me, though. I kind of like it here, up in the wings, watching it all from above. Gives a girl a certain freedom. And, besides, let me tell you a secret: all art needs a little sadness in it, a small tragedy to balance the human comedy.”
She stood on the ledge like a jumper at the window. The Deux Mains made her totter before settling into a comfortable position. “Don’t worry, dear friends. May I call you friends? Perhaps not right away, but I hope we are friends in the end. We are not here to talk of life’s tragedies but to entertain you with a number of sketches, some happy, some sad, in our little revue. Like life, our show has plenty of laughs along the way. Sit back, relax. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain or the hands that fiddle with our strings. Let us be friends.”
The spotlight went off and Kay was swept into hiding. The Deux Mains hurried to another opening for the first scene. From her resting place, Kay could hear the crowd roar with laughter during the ribald bits from “The Regina Monologues” and “Adam and Eve and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice.” Some sniffled during the rocking chair denouement of “The Olden Girls,” and Kay eagerly waited for the key moment in “Lassie, Go Home,” where young Timmy, played by Nix, fell down the well, and Lassie, played by the Dog, barked incessantly instead of rushing off to find help. The first woof, woof from Delacroix brought a few chuckles, the second, a ripple of titters, but by the fifth plea for Lassie to just go home already, the audience was in shock, and when Lassie lifted a leg, they were fully in on the desperate joke.
The Russian sisters played a series of roles in many of the scenes, but Kay’s favorite was “Cinderella Goes Shoe Shopping,” with Irina in the title role and the other two as the stepsisters complaining about their feet. Mr. Firkin played the hapless clerk trying to serve all three at once. But it was the ending that fascinated and terrified Kay. By some magical trick, the shoes—also wired—began to dance by themselves in a frenzy, clattering on the stage as the puppeteers stomped on the floor behind them. All five puppeteers worked the actors, but the Quatre Mains handled pairs and pairs of shoes, furious with the sticks, so many flying wires that he indeed seemed to have four hands.