ROCAMORA TEATRE "Aubuster"

Irony suspended on a string
Enrico Pau. NUOVA SARDEGNA. 20/07/1995
A life of a string puppet lasts the duration of the performance. Suspended by its intangible strings, and dependant on the skill of the animator, the puppet experiences all human emotions in just one hour. The audience are gifted with a fragment of this, its life, which is only meaningful in the lights of a small stage. Carles Canellas is one of the most important puppeteers in his country, Spain. He is currently at Quartu together with five other Spanish companies, invited by “Is Mascareddas” to its delightful “In the centre of the Mediterranean” season. The proposal of the season is to take a meaningful look at the great heritage of techniques and traditions of Spanish puppet theatre. Canellas presented his latest production “Aubuster”, on Tuesday evening at the Casa Sarritzu, where this curious string-animated character appeared on the stage. “Aubuster” is closely related to Buster Keaton, clown tradition and characters from eastern European animated cartoons, such as Gustav, which in the 1970s filled the evenings of people who are now over thirty. Like Buster Keaton he is silent and experiences events with the same attitude. But like a clown he has to put up with objects rebelling (arrows, stairs and pyramids) and becoming insurmountable. Like Gustav, he has to put up with the worrying presence of objects from his house: the bed, a clock and the refrigerator, which, in addition, swallows him. “Aubuster” is a metaphor for human beings who are faced with a reality they do not understand and one that is too absurd and perhaps abstract to be taken in fully. In a one-hour performance, Canellas uses small and highly efficient stage solutions and the sensitivity of his hands to gift the audience with a show suspended on the string of sublime irony.

author and director: .....	Carles Cañellas
assistant director: .....	Cristóbal Fernández
puppet design: .....	Carles Cañellas - David Ventura
puppet construction: .....	Carles Cañellas
puppet wardrobe: .....	Susanna Rodríguez
prop design and construction: .....	Carles Cañellas - Arturo Aldazábal - Susanna Rodríguez
puppet manipulation: .....	Carles Cañellas
stage manager: .....	Susanna Rodríguez