A Manual Cinema show is hard to explain. It’s performed live, but it’s not quite a theater piece. It’s puppetry but not in the traditional sense. It’s cinema, as the company’s name suggests, yet happens live, mixing different art forms to create something unique.
For those unfamiliar, the Chicago-based troupe — which last came to Spoleto Festival USA in 2016 with “Ada/Ava” — combines old-school projectors and shadow puppets to create a mix of cinematic theater and theatrical cinema. Drew Dir, one of Manual Cinema’s five artistic directors, easily summarizes the experience.
“The goal is to make it feel like a feature-length animated film,” Dir said.
For its return to Spoleto, Manual Cinema is bringing 500 shadow puppets and slides for the world premiere of “The 4th Witch.” Much like its other work, “The 4th Witch” is an adaptation — in this case, of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.” In this version of the Scottish play, a young girl orphaned by King Macbeth is taken in by the play’s three witches. They make her an apprentice, and she becomes enticed by the idea of using her new magic for revenge.
“It’s a story about a girl who may or may not be in a state where she’s being manipulated by a witch,” Dir said. “And the question of how much agency she has, or question of how much agency any of us have, is a question that’s really deep in ‘Macbeth.’”
Dir said puppetry is a particularly adept medium to address this question of agency. “It seems to move out of its own volition, but it’s also being manipulated by a puppeteer,” he said. “And that tension was really exciting to explore for us, and was sort of our way in for, like, ‘Why “Macbeth”? Why puppetry?’”
Shakespeare without the words
Manual Cinema’s creative process brings an added challenge: It doesn’t use dialogue in its plays, relying entirely on visuals and music. According to Dir, people have told the company for years that it should adapt Shakespeare. But the members hesitated. How can you adapt Shakespeare without language?
“I feel like you can see and hear and smell ‘Macbeth’ in a way that made it pretty easy,” said Ben Kauffman, one of the company’s other artistic directors and the composer for “The 4th Witch.”
“We know that we’re tabling basically all of the language,” Kauffman said. “But what else is there?”
A dreamlike mix of sight and sound
Creating a Manual Cinema show combines elements of different art forms to produce its unique formula. The five artistic directors begin by storyboarding each individual frame, much like a creative team would for an animated film. The storyboards are then turned into a moving storyboard, or animatic, to visualize what the final product may look like — at which point the composers begin writing the score.
With the music underway, the actors begin rehearsals. For a piece like “The 4th Witch,” they start by blocking the show. Once the actors and musicians have separately learned their parts, the company comes together for a sitzprobe — when the musical and performance elements are combined for the first time.
“I would say the experience of watching a Manual Cinema show can be very dreamlike, in that you’re watching this play of images and music, and it’s sort of outside the realm of language,” Dir said. “You’re following a story, but it is like you are experiencing it differently than you would a play that is all about language.”
So, what exactly should audiences expect from “The 4th Witch?” In a sense, the production is a return to form for Manual Cinema as the company turns 15. Some of its recent productions have included live actors on screen and furry puppets, but “The 4th Witch” removes any additions, relying on just shadow puppets and music. Still, the company continues to come up with ways to enchant its audience.
“We are constantly inventing things to surprise ourselves,” Dir said. “We say, ‘What have we never seen anyone do on a stage before?’ We try to load the show up with that. If nothing else, it will be a spectacular experience.”
IF YOU WANT TO GO: “The 4th Witch” will be performed at the Emmett Robinson Theatre at the College of Charleston at 6:30 p.m. June 4; 8 p.m. June 5; 6 p.m. June 6; 3 and 7 p.m. June 7; and 3 p.m. June 8.
Ally Watkinson is an art journalism graduate student at Syracuse University.
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