Portsmouth’s Pontine Theatre has been bringing puppetry and toy theater to audiences for 38 years. Those are ancient, universal art forms, according to M. Marguerite Mathews, Pontine’s co-artistic director. “They’re culturally significant all around the world but aren’t your typical theater,” she says.
That’s changing, though, and Mathews says puppetry and toy theater are enjoying a resurgence, especially in small theaters.
“It allows you to populate the stage. You can present a whole world of personalities and people outside yourself,” she says.
If that’s the case, then Pontine’s new season, which opens this weekend in Portsmouth, will play host to hundreds of memorable characters, all brought to life by Mathews, co-artistic director Greg Gathers, and a host of visiting artists. Having guest artists “deepens our connections with those people and informs our work,” Mathews says.
In fact, the season’s first production is a staging of Shakespeare’s “King Lear” by Independent Eye, a California-based touring theater company. Actors Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller bring the full text of the play to life using almost 30 puppets and original music.
“For us, Shakespeare is uniquely suited to puppetry because the stories are deeply metaphorical, and the medium allows shifts from realistic behavior to metaphor in startling ways,” Bishop says.
The season also includes “A New England Christmas,” which uses toy theater to stage stories by two New England authors — “The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t” by Ogden Nash, and “The Christmas Monks,” by Mary Wilkins Freeman. That’s on stage in December. So is Westfest, Pontine’s annual festival that celebrates Vaudeville acts and includes performances by nationally known jugglers, magicians, comedians, and others.
In February, New York City-based actor Tom Cayler stages his production of “Because of the Women,” a “very funny” staging of the histories of Herodotus, Mathews says. That’s followed in April by Pontine’s production of “Evangeline,” an adaptation of Longfellow’s epic poem about the 1755 Acadian diaspora in Nova Scotia.
“(Longfellow’s) so close to home, and we’re always looking for something that has a connection to our area,” Gathers says.
And in June, there’s Little Blue Moon Theatre of California’s toy theater production of “The Miller’s Tale,” adapted from “The Canterbury Tales.” True to Chaucer’s original text, it’s “bawdy and very funny,” Gathers says.
“It’s a whole season of interpretations of classics, but it wasn’t as if we planned it that way,” Mathews says. “These things just seem to find us.”
Mathews and Gathers are particularly excited about “Evangeline.” Gathers makes the puppets and masks and sets that they use in their productions, and once work wraps up on “A New England Christmas,” he’ll turn his attention to bringing Longfellow’s characters — an Acadian couple separated on their wedding day as British soldiers expelled the French-speaking inhabitants of Nova Scotia — to life.
“It’s very beautifully written and the language is exquisite,” Mathews says. “It’s a beloved story.”
The Independent Eye performs “King Lear” Oct. 23 at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 24 at 4 p.m., and Oct. 25 at 2 p.m. at Pontine Theatre, 959 Islington St. (inside the West End Studio Theatre), Portsmouth. Tickets are $24, available at 603-436-6660 or pontine.org.