When I was a kid, I had a crush on Miss Piggy.
Embarrassing as it is, what drew me to Miss Piggy was her sassy, larger-than-life personality that was both entertaining and all the more candid. As a child, the puppetry in the Muppets and Sesame Street captivated me, but, more importantly, taught me numbers and letters and stranger danger and following my dreams–all from simple puppets.
If My Feet Have Lost the Ground, Assistant Theater Studies Professor Torry Bend's latest piece, invokes puppetry in a similar manner to more elaborately portray the complexities of the human experience.
The show centers around a woman who finds a live-beating heart in an envelope marked "Read Me" on the back seat of an airplane. The woman then journeys across the world to return the heart to its owner while discovering herself and how she connects more deeply to the heart, people and places around her. Specifically, Bend combines puppetry with layered, landscaped sets and audio-visual effects to produce a piece that deftly connects people specifically through the senses.
Jules Odendahl-James, Director of Academic Engagement in the Humanities, has collaborated with Bend in many previous productions. She corroborates that through this design process Bend crafts "puppets and objects imbued with human empathy, need and emotion."
Bend found that using puppets as a medium as opposed to human actors allows her audiences to forge a deeper connection to her characters.
"I fundamentally investigate what it means to be human," Bend said. "As soon as you take a representation of the human form it starts to pose questions about what it means to be human. If a wooden puppet is 'real,' what does it mean to be real, mean to be alive? Is it cognizant understanding?"
Bend also uses the puppet medium to showcase the power that objects bring to create rich storylines.
"If you have a handmade puppet sitting next to a handmade airplane seat, the airplane seat is as important as the puppet is," Bend said. "Suddenly we start to pay attention to the personality of the objects and relate it our own lives."
Along with collaborations with Odendahl-James and Duke students, Bend has also tried to bridge Duke and Durham through her community based works. In fact, some of her outreach efforts inspired the storyline of this show.
Two years ago, Bend and her Theatre Studies class embarked on the Dear Stranger Project. She and her students tied approximately 500 envelopes to lampposts around Durham that said "Read Me" and fastened the envelopes with stranger buttons. Her class filled the envelopes with student and faculty penned letters, poems, stories and reflections addressed to the city of Durham. These notes symbolically stood as the hearts of Duke being spread throughout the city. Some wrote about growing up in Durham. Others wrote about finding an appreciation for the city and ultimately calling Durham home. Nevertheless, Bend's work connected and opened discussion about how Duke can grow to become a more organic part of Durham.
If My Feet Have Lost the Ground is Bend's final piece here at Duke as she moves on to teach at the University of Minnesota, where the puppet scene is booming.
"She has an amazing eye for form," Odendahl-James said of Bend's contribution to the Theatre Department. "She has worked on traditional settings...and on spaces that are much more abstract and much more aesthetic and evocative."
Bend's If My Feet Have Lost the Ground should offer a chance to explore our child-like fascination for puppetry (maybe even a crush), but it also strives to portray real emotions like loss, connection, and empathy through a more inquisitive and unique medium.
Bend describes the transition as "very difficult" and "to a certain degree, [like] leaving home." Duke and Durham's enthusiasm, willingness and excitement, she feels, allowed her to grow as an artist and experiment her craft in unique ways. Bend's final performance in Durham promises to be not just a testament to her craft, but also to her keen sense of the human heart.
If My Feet Have Lost the Ground runs from Oct. 16 through Nov. 1 at Manbites Dog Theater. For more information on pricing and location visit manbitesdogtheater.org.
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