These photos and small videos capture the lengthy process this project has gone through — scroll down for the chronology. Beginning as series of scenes with puppets, then to a one-person show with some different puppets requiring surgical cameras, to an all-puppet live show, to its final expression as a film, BlueBeardGasLight has been my project since 2018 after a commission from The Muse Project (with special gratitude to Jocelyn Kuritsky, A.D.). It had its first reading at the Flea Theater in TriBeCa, and then at the So-Fi Festival at Westbeth.
The film grew out of the pandemic year cohort (2019-2020) of the Object Movement Festival (with very special thanks to Brian Gillespie, who developed this piece with me for a year at OMF, and to Luke Santy, who was our live tech operator; and to the curators at the Object Movement Festival, Rowan Magee, Maiko Kikuchi and Justin Perkins; and to Zachary Tomlinson).
BBGL has received additional grants and support from The Vermont Arts Council, the Puppeteers of America and the Puffin Foundation.
“If I were not mad….” BlueBeardGasLight, So-Fi Festival June 2019, Westbeth
House by Jei Olson, puppets by Kyra Miller
BlueBeard and Bride, by Kyra Miller. Cart puppet version.
creeping towards the door. September 2019.
But one day the house was quiet…
From when I thought this was going to be a cart-puppetry-inspired piece. 2018.
2018 — first attempts to navigate the puppet with magnets.
2019 — an Iranian puppeteer came to see a presentation night at Object Movement and suggested that both puppets needed deeper grooves and shadows in their faces, which made the light hit their faces in more expressive ways.
Blue Beard eyes his new wife. Early versions of the costume, from when they each had one magnet they were sort of “skating” on around the house, no articulated legs.
Brian Gillespie eyes Fatima puppet (pre-hair…) in the shoe closet. This moment became key in later versions of the film.
In the hall of mirrors (with apologies to Orson Welles….). February, 2020. Still wearing her old skirt and feet, and with brown hair. Little did we know what was about to happen.
a new face! (but not the final face, see below). and stronger wire! 2019
Bride gets a hairdo
New version in progress — hair to come. Ranevskaya, maybe? #dollshousechekhov
“Oh my childhood, my innocent childhood. Happiness awoke with you every morning, it was just like this, nothing has changed, all, all white blossoms. After the dismal autumn and long frigid winter you are young again, the angels of heaven haven't abandoned you yet. If only I could free my neck, my shoulders, from this stone weighing me down. If only I could forget the past…” Mid lockdown, 2020 — this was a project that never came to pass, but it won’t leave me alone.
Bluebeard in the forest (puppet by Kyra Miller, photo credit Fiona Small)
Bluebeard and She (puppets by Kyra Miller, photo credit Fiona Small). 2022 — before they had hands.