Re: Therapeutic Marionettes

I would like to share with you some recent projects I have been involved with. These include teen suicide education, First Nations and Hospice.

Teen Suicide Program

Last year, I was contracted to develop a nine-month youth generated program on teen suicide by a mental health association using professional marionettes and theatre arts as tools.

It involved working with over 30 teens that came from all social backgrounds and interests giving voice to their concerns, issues and feelings about teen suicide. In effect, ”teens talking to teens”. It included teens at risk, those seeking information to help friends, and those interested in being of service in the community. The program involved working with professionals in the field and of course, untold community support and contribution.

The program began with education on causes of teen suicide, intervention steps and where to get help. I developed role-playing exercises with marionettes to obtain raw material enabling me to write a play that was performed by the teens to the community at large.

It was a challenge getting the messages across, doing it in a safe way for the teen’s own process and using their phrases and perceptions. It meant designing a program in which they could make decisions and have input on every level in the process. It was quite a challenge, a lot of fun, frustrations along the way but everybody had a wonderful time.

I built professional marionettes and used them as the prime message bearers, incorporated mask performances under black light with human stage performance and shadow puppetry to enact a suicide resulting in a multifaceted stage performance.

I have found the marionettes not only to be a unique and interesting art form but also to be a very powerful tool. They enlist engagement and communication in a fun and safe way whether someone is operating the marionette or whether it’s the audience or group that’s responding to that performance.

Working with the marionettes can bring the "inner life" of the operator forward where other methods have not succeeded.

Marionettes can facilitate a shorter process of team building and trust over other methods. Under the focus of preparing a performance for "others" the individual goes through the healing process themselves. With the use of masks, marionettes and shadow puppetry, the individual is not “seen”, freeing inhibitions of expression and issues concerning “abilities” thus making it safe for everyone. It can entail all the art forms (writing, sculpting, painting etc) as well as performance.

The teens were able to express their knowledge and experience without adults imposing what "they" think, work together with fun and humour and enact it. The play then became very valuable to the audience because what they saw was the reality of what the participants involved put into it. An educational and healing process took place for the families and community viewers as well as the participants.

The program was totally responsive to the players in the program. They felt a deep commitment and ownership of it because it was based on their essence and their input.

The positive feedback has been overwhelming from the youth involved, parents, community groups, and schools supported by survey material. It has been recommended that the program concept be continued.

I have video material of the developmental stages of the program, the performance itself, and interviews of some of the teens that offered to share the impact of the program so that it may continue. I also have adult interviews from the perspective of a parent, an audience member and myself.

First Nations

I have met with the Chiefs, Elders and performed a story with the storyteller of the Okanagan Nation Alliance. We discussed the possibilities of using marionettes that are specially built in the form of First Nations characters to be used in similar youth programs, healing circles, prevention and awareness education and in traditional activities in storytelling. Also, as a means to give voice to residential school issues which would in turn, hopefully, promote communication and healing for the survivors and their families where I have been told that other methods are not working.

Hospice

I have also used marionettes in Hospice and palliative situations to engage communication, to uplift and to story tell in a way that has meaning to the individual, aids in letting go of unfinished business, and enables the passing to be as peaceful as possible.

For information I am attaching some interesting feedback remarks from people involved in the Teen suicide Program. Should anyone wish to contact me: Norma Jackson anandaimages@shaw.ca

19-Year-Old Male

It was an amazing experience. The freedom of expression was, it was incredible. Nurtured mostly through the sort of feeling that we are all in a very similar situation there.

We learned to laugh at ourselves. And I think that, if we try to approach this in a very serious, very deep manner that the impact would have either been lost or at least dramatically changed because we would be presenting this in a very sort of, you know, boom, watch this instead of having that underlying bit of humor that gave us the energy.

... Playing the character of Pete, the aboriginal character gave me a little more confidence in the world.

18-Year-Old Female

The highlight of it, seeing everything come together, just all the work we put into it over eight, nine months was just phenomenal and then that last month seeing everything pull together and everyone knew their lines and everything was down pat and just that it felt great.

It was very successful. Seeing the feedback from the play and the people saying wow, I’ve never thought about this before and children talking to their parents afterward, that’s rewarding in itself.

...You could put your own emotion into it when you were using the puppets and it would show through. If you were feeling sad as you were moving the puppet then your puppet, even though it had a happy face painted on it, it would look sad too.

Just seeing people’s reactions to the marionettes, listening more because of the unique way that it was being shown.

The thing I probably took away the most was recognizing the signs of suicide and intervention steps, how to deal with it. Walking in off the street, you don’t know who’s going to act suicidal, right but walking away from the project you definitely do see signs that you wouldn’t have noticed before. And intervention, that’s a big thing. I mean to give someone the skills to be able to save a life, that’s amazing. And the fact that we were taught that, that’s worth going to the project just for that.

Just being able to work with that many people and pull something like this off, it was just amazing. I learned a lot. I can definitely say that if something else like this was to turn up I’d recommend everybody to try it because it’s just amazing to see the people that come in and care.

.... In the end the artistic that came through, the shadow puppetry, that’s the most powerful thing that I have ever seen used and just the silence of the audience when that went on, amazing delivery and using the marionettes as a medium for that it was, it was awesome.

I’m really kind of disappointed that we didn’t get to take it to all the schools. It’s just tools that are so important growing up because you get those times when you feel really unbelievably down and you don’t know what to do. So if we could have taken that to the schools we would have provided kids with a good backup to you know, rely on and say hey, I learned this, this is what I can do instead of choosing the alternative which is what the play is about.

15-Year-Old Male

I think the play did help with the dealing with the people at school because now I don’t just have to take it, I know how to like deal with it. I know there’s a lot of people that I can actually talk to, instead of like, I can talk to my teachers right but they can’t really do anything about it unless I go to the principal and I don’t really want to go to the principal because then I will be labeled as a tattletale and I’ll get bugged even more, so I can go to my parents but then my parents get all wrapped up in the school and everything and it’s harder to, like it gets even harder to deal with.

Before the play I actually, in elementary I had to deal with bullying. I had to take therapy starting in grade four. I had to go see a counselor once a week to deal with my issues. I didn’t really listen to him. In therapy it was just some old balding guy who was just getting paid to deal with me.

The play was helpful where therapy wasn’t was, I got to let out stuff like, I held in a lot of, like for awhile now because of the stuff that I’ve been taking, I got to let a whole bunch of stuff that I had been holding in like anger, being upset, but uh. With the play I got to let out those issues, my problems because I was around people that I trust.

I think it was really well done how it was written. I don’t think anything really needed to be changed.

Parent and Audience member

… As an adult the play opened my mind to how serious going through the teenage years is. And how as an adult we get wrapped up in our lives and forget about all of the different emotional turmoil that our kids are probably going through and hiding. And it made me more aware to ask questions.

Our middle school son was in the audience watching the play. He was really touched by it. He said to me, “you know that was really neat mom. I hadn’t thought about the bullying aspect in the play”. He said, “I hadn’t thought about it, making somebody feel so awful.” He said, “We really should do something about that.”

I think that the marionettes were the part of the play that made it so that you didn’t get so scared away from talking about the subject.

My son felt a profound dedication to this, and I, feel sad that it isn’t going to be able to go on. So often the things that are so positive and wonderful in our society get shuffled to the side, usually because of finances. I thought it was really a great production.

I think probably every adult can relate to what went on in each different part of the production, as when they were kids.

You have a gift. You should do this more. I really believe that. I thought, I’ve seen lots of kid’s plays at school and I’ve never seen anything so well done with a bunch of young people and I just, my hats off to you. Wow that was really just so much more than I was expecting. I was just absolutely taken aback.

Through the several weeks that it took place, getting to the actual production, when I would walk into the theatre and I would look around and think there was just mayhem and teenagers having just an absolute great time enjoying themselves thoroughly. I thought you could just even have a youth center like that. They were so upbeat and they were all being respectful of each other. I didn’t hear any putdowns or anything; they were all working as a team.

…. never once complained that anybody was cranky. He said that Norma managed to keep her cool and make it a fun process for the young people that were involved in it and that is huge, because I don’t think there are a lot of people that could do that.

That was the difference you know. Other adults may have just exploded on the kids which would have just turned them off of being there and she managed to just work with them and do it in a positive manner obviously, and because it just, it really showed in the production. You could tell those kids really felt what they were doing.

She has a gift and should do this more. I really believe that. I thought, I’ve seen lots of kid’s plays at school and I’ve never seen anything so well done with a bunch of young people. I said to my husband as we walked out, Wow, that was really just so much more than I was expecting. I was just absolutely taken aback.

First Nations Adult male audience member

I saw myself in all those characters. The bully, the victim, depending on my day. The ostracized one, I been there too you know where I’m a different color. I related very easily. I kept having to remind myself, hey, these aren’t real, what am I doing? There was one scene, especially the funeral scene where the mother reaches for the father and I’m going come on take her hand. And then I go, come on wait a minute, these are puppets.

And the combination of the three, visual mediums makes it so visually stimulating for the audience that is just opened up for me what the possibilities might be here as far as working with people. And your dealing with a subject matter that was so hot. I have no idea, I would never have had the tools to be able to work with those kids, to arrive at that point, or to even consciously to know about how to deal, or to create a safe place for them to express it. It seems to me the marionettes do a complete job and a very holistic job and I’m very much an advocate for what I call holistic theatre as opposed to professional theatre.

The one instance I want to bring up is the shadow puppets to do the actual hanging, the poem about the bullying until he just couldn’t take it anymore and he had, I mean that was powerful yet it removed it enough from us that we could actually look at it. Even then the shifting in the seats of the audience at that time was you know, one person actually went, “ahhh”, and actually started to leave but came back. And that I thought was interesting you know, it wasn’t like they were insulted by what they saw, it wasn’t like you took it too far, it wasn’t. I think it hit right on the mark.

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