SNACK met with Mark Down, master puppeteer and artistic director/co-founder of Blind Summit, to discuss the journey to their new show The Sex Lives of Puppets, which you can see throughout its Fringe run. It features genuine life experiences and thoughts from real people (albeit altered somewhat to obscure identities) delivered in a Creature Comforts-style format through puppets.
Tell me about your particular show development method and process, Follow the Puppet.
We start with the puppet – it feels like I sit and look at the puppet until there is a show. It’s a painful process, but it ends in a really good place. In 2012, we wanted to do puppets with moving mouths – the very first ended up being the character Preston in The Sex Lives of Puppets. We’re following the puppets; the puppets move very slowly. He’s been cast and recast across several shows.
So, I followed the puppets, and the puppets wanted to talk about sex.
You’ve previously covered puppet alcoholism, puppet existentialism, and puppet possession – why now puppet sex?
I wish I’d done puppet sex at the beginning! This is really ‘following the puppet’. About five years ago we were mucking around after a run of a show, and I felt we hadn’t got to the end of these puppets, that they still had something in them. When they talked about their sexuality and their identity, it made us laugh. They’re just talking about relationships, complaining about each other. There’s a big question about what their identity is because you can so easily change the hair on them, change their gender.
Then there was a moment where it changed from just a title idea, The Sex Lives of Puppets, where I suddenly realised if we are going to do this, I need to find something more out about sex; I can’t just rely on my own experience. I was then literally just then listening to the Today programme and they mentioned the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, and then I discovered a friend was one of the authors. I’ve found with projects, when things like that happen, you don’t find a reason to stop.
What can a puppet do that a human can’t?
Well, one thing is: talk openly about sex. My dad came to see it, sat next to my brother and nephew, ages 85, 54, 14. Dad said afterwards, ‘God, it would have been awful if it was people’.
They really create a safe space for saying things that, in any other space, I think would divide people.
Puppets – when they’re looking at us, they’re not really looking at us. The best way to talk to people is to not look them in the eyes – it’s too much commitment. I find you talk really well when you’re on a walk or something – so maybe puppets are like that.
But a puppet can’t be attractive – they’re very sweet, but you wouldn’t call a puppet sexy. When you try and make a puppet sexier it becomes absolutely ghastly. Theatre and film and things are very looks-oriented – physically attractive people. The puppets are very ordinary – therefore it’s sort of like the sex lives of ordinary people, that’s how I read it.
Has anything surprised you with the show?
The whole show surprised me. We’ve only done ten shows so far – I’m amazed at how people have reacted to it. I went in thinking on that first day that we could be cancelled. It’s a big subject that can go really wrong. Every day in rehearsal we chat at the beginning and end, checking in.
In fact, people love talking about sex. Once you put it out there, you can’t shut people up. That’s been a bit of a surprise because the narrative is that as a society we don’t talk about it. It’s the most interesting subject in the world.
I hope it will encourage people to talk about sex more. It’s got me talking about sex and I wasn’t very good before. Now I talk about it all the time!
The Sex Lives of Puppets is at the Pleasance Courtyard Beyond, 31 July – 25 August.
Image Credit: Mark Down