Published on December 29, 2005

Pirate puppets will be pillaging the Hoontown festival this weekend. The expression “art for art’s sake” finds its perfect embodiment in puppeteers Nick Jones and Raja Azar, who got into the business just because they love it so much – and they to plan to stay there for the rest of their lives.

They’re the founders of Jollyship the Whiz-Bang, a Brooklyn-based troupe that bills itself as “the Pyrate Puppet Rock Opera Consortium”.

If that sounds a bit flamboyant, you should see the show. The group is bringing its noisily musical salty-sea tales to Hoontown 2005, the puppet festival being held on Bangkok’s Samsen Road Soi 5 tomorrow through Sunday.

Americans Jones and Azar have a fascination with puppetry that stems from the fact that it combines all of their disparate passions – music, theatre and making stuff up – all of which can be incorporated into one show filled with action, lighting, sound, dialogue and even special effects.

Plus, puppets are easier to deal with than people, they declare.

“They’re also cheaper – you don’t have to feed them,” laughs Jones.

This pair of puppet masters are clearly delighted to be sharing their imagination with audiences.

“It’s like we’re creating a cartoon world, so you have the drive to think more creatively about ways to create the actions or to move the story forward, and that’s very challenging,” says Azar.

They picked up the puppet bug on a visit to Bali five years ago.

“We acquired some Indonesian puppets and started to play around with them,” Jones says. “We created a show about pirates, and people seemed to like it.”

They took it on the road, and it wasn’t long before they realised the shows could be bigger and better with some extra hands. There are now eight people in the Jollyship crew.

Why the sea? Credit Bali again. One of the puppets Jones bought there made him think of pirates right away. “Of course the original pirates were brutal and murderous, but I think they have a certain romantic appeal for people today,” he says. “They represent people who have total freedom, living outside the law and the bounds of society.”

“The sea,” Azar adds, “is a great equaliser. It makes us see that all humans are the same in terms of needs and motivations. Things like manners and status aren’t important any more when you have to struggle.

“You strip away all those external things, and this is the way you can see true human nature. Your true colours and behaviour will become very apparent.”

The voyages of Jollyship across the sea of humanity have certainly strengthened the maturing band as they continue to collect valuable experience and grander inspirations. September’s journey to the Dublin Fringe Festival proved to be their most influential trip to date thanks to the sparks of impetus they found in Ireland. There, they were experimenting with full multimedia theatre for the first time, and the response was encouraging.

“That trip made us realise we can actually do this,” Azar says. “The puppetry we do is viable, and a real art force. We were totally amazed by the response. We realised that if we pushed ourselves a little bit harder, we can keep going and going.”

They expect Thailand’s inaugural Hoontown festival to give them another learning experience, and even ahead of the performances they were enjoying the opportunity to share ideas and techniques with other puppeteers and exchange cultural outlooks.

And, of course, Thailand is no stranger to puppetry, so they’re keeping an eye out for new knowledge among its traditions.

“After the festival we’ll either go scuba diving in Koh Chang or visit Oomphang in Tak province,” Jones says, “and there we’ll find more materials to add to our shows. We usually grab something from all the countries we visit.”

The materials thus collected can be almost anything, actually – an old toy or a discarded artefact posed, or maybe even a human trait that strikes them as humorous. This they exaggerate a bit and include it in their shows.

Jones displays a bee modelled from clay with wings taken from a flying toy. They made it specially for a show called “The Colonists”, which they’re presenting at Hoontown.

Also on the festival programme is “The Seagull”, a prominent piece of which they’re justifiably proud. The bird of the title is made simply of papier-m?ch? and “garbage”, as Jones puts it, but it’s capable of intricate movements.

“It can turn its head, open its mouth and flap its wings,” Azar says. “Unfortunately its head fell off due to some misappropriate effort to modify it, but it’s still beautiful to look at!”

The sturdy skippers of Jollyship see their next big conquest in a tour of America’s west coast, and after that they’re keen to return to Southeast Asia.

“Hopefully, we can bring the whole group to Thailand next time,” says Azar.

Weeranuch Puttachartsaewee

The Nation

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