Pitt ‘ puppets ‘ a play

Who knew scraps could be so beautiful?

Tavia LaFollette, puppeteer for Pitt Rep’s… Who knew scraps could be so beautiful?

Tavia LaFollette, puppeteer for Pitt Rep’s production of “A Toothache ‘ A Plague ‘ A Dog,” sculpts striking puppets from recycled newspaper, plastic bags and cardboard. This semester, as a teaching artist-in-residence, she is sharing her singular talents with a class-load of students.

When I meet her in the sculpting studio in the Cathedral basement, she is standing behind a work desk wearing black velvet pants, burgundy boots and a blue blouse. Her curly, blond hair and green-blue eyes accent her good-humored personality.

Of course I notice her, but the three puppets, painted a medium-brown tone over curiously misshapen features, on the table command my attention first. There is something mesmerizing about them; they’re practically impossible to look away from.

Later, after leading me through several rooms into the black box theater, which was torn apart for the construction of an environmental set design, LaFollete tells me the puppets I saw were papier-mache, three-headed masks that will be featured in the play along with rod puppets, giant marionettes and shadow puppets. She also says that puppets tell a great deal about our human nature.

“It’s fascinating how much love we can put into an inanimate object, whether it’s a car, a stuffed animal or a cell phone. We get emotionally attached to something that doesn’t give us back any love, so we have this amazing ability to project emotions onto things. When you see something that transforms from a stick into a face it’s a magical moment, and we realize that it’s not really true…but we emotionally want to believe in it so much that we do.”

In other words, when we see a puppet in a production, something psychological happens and we are there, in that child-like state where we once believed more than we doubted. How precious the art of a puppeteer is, then, that she can create an object that has the power to transform our minds and change the way we think of ourselves and the world around us, if only for a brief moment.

In America, puppets generally don’t receive the same level of respect and admiration that those in other countries do. Here, when people speak of puppets they think of Jim Henson’s Muppets and of recreational fodder for kids, LaFollette said, whereas in most parts of the world, puppets are seen in the context of mature, community art.

In Pitt Rep’s production of Osvaldo Dragun’s “A Toothache ‘ A Plague ‘ A Dog,” LaFollette gets to do her choice theater, one that is political in nature. (At the close of the interview, she said the only thing she wanted to add is that everyone should come see the show and register to vote!)

So what, exactly, do puppets and politics have in common?

According to LaFollette, a mask is not just for wearing: It has been a powerful tool for social change as far back as ancient Greece. “Art and theater has been banned and censored from society forever,” said LaFollette.

“It’s a great vehicle because it’s an alternative voice when you have the people who are governing your world and you don’t like what they’re saying or telling you, it’s another voice that gets through to people, because it’s using metaphor.”

“A Toothache” is a set of three satirical stories that look at social justice issues through the lens of disillusioned characters, both animate and inanimate. LaFollette explained that the set is supposed to represent the “bowels of society,” where the characters have come down to in order to disclose their anguish.

LaFollette added another way this play is unique: “In most theatre productions you’re trying to hide everything that you’re doing so the audience believes, where here we’re purposefully exposing stuff so people can see what we’re creating.”

LaFollette has showcased her puppets around the world, as well as taught the art and craft of puppet making in colleges across the U.S. Last summer, she taught on the Semester at Sea passenger ship where she and her students “took different mythology from each country we visited and created this story of the world” through puppetry.

She is also the founder of Artist’s Upstairs, a space for Pittsburgh artists to explore experimental art, theater and poetry.

“We also seek to expose younger artists and get them to show with more established artists, create a mentor-type situation,” mentioned LaFollette.

Who knew puppets, those inanimate beings made of simple scrap material, have the potential to command an entire globe of people with their piercing stares?

Perhaps LaFollette knew, but either way she bets you’d do a double-take if, per chance, you passed a giant puppet walking along Forbes Avenue. I would.

“A Toothache ‘ A Plague ‘ A Dog” opens tonight and runs through Nov. 19 in the Studio Theatre, Cathedral of Learning. Call (412) 624-PLAY for more information.