Nothing wooden about Splinter's star

SYDNEY Theatre Company has found a new way of not working with children or animals by having puppets step into the role of a child.

Helen and Erik Thomson

SYDNEY Theatre Company has found a novel way of not working with children or animals by having puppets step into the role of a child.

Children, being naturally cute, can too easily grab an audience's attention, says theatre director Sarah Goodes. The child character of Laura in The Splinter, however, is intended to be an ambiguous presence.

"We were interested in exploring a fluid representation of her," said Goodes at STC's Wharf Theatre. "When you put a child on stage, it's a bit like putting a cat or a dog on stage people become preoccupied with their presence."

The Splinter, by Sydney playwright Hilary Bell, is about a child who goes missing for nine months. When she is returned to her family, her parents cannot be sure that it is Laura.

The play will open at the Wharf on Wednesday.

Goodes said the story was inspired in part by literary sources (such as The Turn of the Screw by Henry James), and by the real-life case of Elizabeth Smart, the girl abducted from her home in the US at age 14.

The idea for the play was workshopped by members of STC's Residents company of actors, and puppetry was introduced early on.

Puppetry director Alice Osborne said puppets helped create theatrical illusion. "It's highly theatrical in a way, because (the puppets) don't really exist without performance. What we're doing is exposing the mechanics of how we create the images. We're not trying to hide anything."

Osborne is a member of the independent theatre group My Darling Patricia and has worked with French ensemble Compagnie Philippe Genty, renowned for its puppetry work.

In The Splinter, a variety of Laura puppets will be manipulated in the Japanese Bunraku style by Julia Ohannessian and Kate Worsley. Also in the cast are actors Erik Thomson and Helen Thomson.

Osborne said puppetry was an alternative to electronic special effects. The puppets not only represent the character of Laura but also "manipulate the psychological world of the play".

"We're interested in building those elements in front of you like a cumulative image, so you see things taking shape," she said. "Bunraku has very strict rules; we're not adhering to all those rules. But that's the style of puppetry that all our puppets have sprung from."