BWW Preview: The Puppets Take Players by the Sea in HAND TO GOD

Tyrone, the most "shallow, violent, foul-mouthed puppet" comes to shocking life in Robert Askins' play HAND TO GOD at Players by the Sea Theatre in Jacksonville Beach, playing November 4 to 19.

The physical design of the evil puppet was the brainchild of Morgan Kelly, a puppeteer and performance artist based in St. Augustine, with input from Director, Christopher P. Farrell. "The show's been done before," Kelly explains, "so there is a general idea of the style of puppet. There are so many different styles of puppets - there's shadow puppetry, and rod puppetry, and tabletop puppetry. This show has a precedent of it just being a hand-and-rod puppet. So we were pretty clear on that would be the style - kind of Muppet-like. Then Chris had some specific styles within that that he was going for - particular images he was working from. And then from there, I was able to start building." Kelly, who has trained with leading puppetmasters and worked professionally both nationally and internationally with original puppet work, has built nine puppets for the production including five versions of Tyrone. Tyrone "evolves" and begins to take on a life of his own throughout the show, repairing and changing himself and appearing in unusual and unexpected places.

Tyrone's alter-ego and puppeteer Jason, played by Austin Farwell, is one of the rebellious "Christcateers" of a Puppet Ministry in the basement of a church in Cypress, Texas. Led by Jason's mother, Margery (played by Kasi Walters) and under the guidance of Pastor Greg (Rodney Holmes), the Ministry tends to the troubled Jason and his "classmates" Jessica (Milan Alley) and Timmy (Myles Hughes). Sparks, teeth, fists, and pent-up sexual attraction fly between the characters and their puppets, including Tyrone's "lady love," Jolene, built and operated by Jessica.

Kelly was pleased with how easily the actors developed and worked with their puppets. "I've been able to give them some little principles and they've been able to do a lot without a huge amount of need for me guiding them - they have a lot of natural ability on their own." Director Farrell is impressed with the intensity of the work Farwell has done with Tyrone - "It's a very exhausting show for Austin ... even to watch him." Tyrone's voice developed organically, according to Farwell - "The voice kind of came - the character just came out. It helps because Jason is from Texas - I was born in Texas, too. Jason is a nice little Texas boy and Tyrone is ... not. In a lot of ways, Tyrone is saying all the things that Jason in his darkest fantasies can't say. He's very repressed, everyone is very repressed in this small town in Texas."

Farwell, a first-time puppeteer, found the process of developing Tyrone especially challenging. "The bizarre thing is that I'm interacting with my puppet a lot. We have a lot of struggles with each other and with the rest of the cast, so I'm playing two roles at the same time in the same kind of moments. It just takes a lot of practice, a lot of focus, but it's been interesting to channel through a conduit of sorts. Surprisingly it's all come pretty nicely, strangely enough. The writing is pretty specific ... the emotionality is clear. It was a lot of working in front of a mirror to see what works." Kelly adds that it's a very different puppet and operator connection - "There's a special relationship that happens between Tyrone and Jason where Tyrone begins to embody all the unspoken thoughts of Jason, so the puppet begins to take on its own life and then the two of them have this battle throughout the show."

Or, as Tyrone himself puts it - "Look at the kid and tell me who you think is in control."

HAND TO GOD plays the first three weekends in November, opening Friday, November 4, and running through Saturday, November 19, in Player's Studio Theatre. For tickets and more information, visit the Players by the Sea website at www.playersbythesea.org or call the theatre at (904) 249-0289.