How did you get into puppetry?
It started when I met a puppet enthusiast who was studying theater at a children's theater in Marseille where I was working. He offered me the opportunity to participate in a workshop in a deconsecrated chapel where we could perform. He was a director, I was an actor. And when I got involved with puppetry, I said, "Okay, I can make it." And so from there, we worked together for 15 years.
Are making and manipulating linked for you?
For me, yes. I wear two hats. I'm a craftsman when I make them and an artist when I manipulate them. I need these two phases to be very distinct. The workshop where I'm alone to make them. I know what my puppet will have to be capable of. There's no point in creating movements that serve no purpose in the performance. We start with an inanimate material and how we give it life, how we transfer our energy to the puppet so that it truly comes to life. So that it breathes. Sometimes, I watch, I think, wow. The puppet is beyond me: all we do is give it an impulse, the puppet starts moving. And then I just accompany it, follow it. And sometimes it's so accurate! It's very easy for me to play with it afterward. I've already thought about all that while bringing it to life.
At Maynats, we saw some very complex puppets!
Not all of them: for the show at the end of the garden, they were tabletop puppets. But it's true that for the walkabout, we had Bunraku puppets, which is the most advanced technique, with the whole face alive, with triggers that allow you to open your mouth, eyes, and eyebrows. I also used a Burmese technique that allows you to open or close your hand. For 25 years, I've made puppets using every technique. I sculpt them and then give them to a visual artist to apply makeup as if she were putting skin on them.
What does the puppet bring to the actor?
The puppet has a very strong presence, even before it moves. I don't look at the audience, so I let the puppet capture their attention. Especially with its gaze and the richness of its expressions, it goes beyond the actor. It's truly magical!
How is this return to the Hautes-Pyrénées going?
Everything is still being built here. It started with Les Maynats, which I already knew and where I had come with another company. I looked at what events were available and contacted those that matched what I'm proposing. That's how I'll be on June 28th at the Jardin Massey, opening La Culture au Jardin at Tarbes Town Hall. It will be The Last Judgment of the Pig. It's the judgment of animals as it existed between the 14th and 17th centuries, when animals were judged like humans, with the right to speak and to defend themselves. People even went so far as to dress the animals. A show I put together about ten years ago, which I performed at the World Puppet Theatre Festival in Charleville-Mézières.
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