Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 14

by Kelly Link Gavin J. Grant

  For Felix, however, the ideal was to enter into a reality with his puppet; use his strings to pull the puppet up to him, or to weave the puppet and himself into the same moment. His puppets, while beautiful, never imitated ‘real people'. For him the beauty lay not in the illusion of reality, but in making real the spaces between the puppet and himself, those tones emanating from the strings connecting them. He worked to make the puppet an extension of himself, or himself an extension of the puppet. By focusing on the relationship between puppet and puppeteer, Felix sought to realize the reality that emerged between beings in dialogue. The ideal for him was not the creation of a whole separate reality, but the act of entering into a shared reality. And there were times, as I said above, when I believe his puppet took hold of the strings and began to lead.

  By concentrating so hard on Felix's early work, we became more and more aware of the connections between puppet and puppeteer. It became clear to us that not only do the strings connect the two, but that they also connect through the space itself. Because of its vertical tendencies, traditional puppetry makes it difficult to realize this connection. The weight of the puppet pulls taut the strings such that they dominate the bond between puppet and puppeteer. Felix, however, joins the puppet on the same level—it is a more horizontal puppetry—thereby lightening the puppet and slackening the strings. From this shift, Felix made himself aware of how else he connected to the puppet. In a short (and sadly not often read) manifesto he wrote for the puppetry arts, Felix calls attention to something he names: “malleable space . . . that space inhabited by both the puppet and puppeteer, which they share, and which does not depend on the strings, but which is instead thick with time, so thick it can support the weight taken off the strings."8 This mysterious spatial connection somewhat resembles a magnetic relationship, with unseen forces acting upon two seemingly separate bodies. I can imagine Felix up on stage sensing this connection, moving so intensely that he imagines the strings have disappeared and that he controls the space itself. His confidence in this connection must have built over time, until he became so sure that the strings were not there, that he reached out and cut them. Whether or not this happened first at the Almeida (the performance Blume criticized so harshly), I think Felix probably cut those strings more to prove to himself what he was beginning to sense, rather than to dazzle the audience with some trick. I wonder if he was in such a frenzy he didn't really know he was doing it, or if fear held his wrist the whole way, his heart beat echoing in the abyss which had opened up in his head. Either way, how profound the feeling when his puppet did not collapse, but kept going, as if to say, “I told you so."; how intense to see your subjective senses stand up before you in the objective world.

  This, at least, is how I imagine it. It's impossible to know whether it happened this way, or even if our theories about the string-less work were true. The underground groups, of which I was a part, never went further than the theory. More scholars than puppeteers, these groups explored Felix's ideas in writing alone. Many ceased actual puppetry work altogether. Perhaps our underground space never generated much anger from those outside of it—not like the anger generated by Felix—because in the end it never actually did anything. Coping with the space Felix hints at with his work is difficult enough in theory; to realize that space seemed to us almost ridiculous.

  Yet, I had seen Felix do it. That space in which Felix wrapped his puppet and himself had materialized before me. I could not deny its reality and began seeking its source and secret. On my own, in my maddest of moments, I would read through the progression of Felix's work as my own, leaping from my notes (and his notebooks) to my own puppets, trying to whisper life into them as Felix had done. Putting myself through Felix's progression, I dared myself to cut the strings. There were times when I could feel something begin to encapsulate my puppet and me, and I would think: “This is it!” Yet, moments of doubt and humility inevitably intervened, and the puppet remained stuck to the floor. Unlike the bombastic rhetorical claims of the underground troupes, these small glimpses into Felix's world made him seem all the more far off. The harder I pushed into that world, the larger and thus more overwhelming it became.

  Moreover, when I shared my thoughts and experiences with my partners in the underground troupes, I was met not with excitement or understanding, but with anger and fear. With behavior that surprised (and saddened) me, my friends did not appreciate my efforts or ideas, but instead treated them with a lethargic malevolence, accusing me (as Blume accused Felix) of mere illusion. Their unwillingness to understand or believe reminded me of the protests outside Felix's shows, protests marched from inertial rather than willful forces. In a way, the reactions of my peers struck me as actually much worse, for they had feigned both a comprehension and a passion. Their rejection and uncertainty hurt; I fled their company.

  I worked alone for a short while, re-reading and imagining Felix's work, trying hard to make it my own. Often, alone in my space, I wrapped myself up in his work so snugly, I felt I had become an extension of him (or that he was an extension of me). When I raised my own voice to contribute, however, he dissipated, as breath with always dissipate the smoke hovering before it. Opening my eyes from the brilliance of my thoughts, I would realize that I was alone in my room and that my hands grasped nothing but themselves.

  All this made the phone call to Felix unreal, imaginary. As I stand now in front of his studio door, I wonder whether or not that phone call ever actually took place. My past began floating away as soon as I started up this infinite staircase. From here, there is no past. All of this has been merely the echo of my steps up these stairs, steps that I have always climbed. My hand hovers, as it has always hovered, before the studio door. Like humming bird wings, my heart disappears into its pulse and I worry that I will soon pass out. My vision shatters into pointillist perspectives, while my hearing increasingly swirls into my head as water down a drain. I clasp my two hands together in a frozen clap, hoping this will keep my head above the water filling up my head. I do not want to disappear; I feel myself disappearing.

  Two legs in a doorway is what I see. I can feel my body crumpled on the floor. I do not understand either of these things.

  "Hello?” I hear the legs say, or the man connected to the legs I mean. “Are you all right?” The man is talking.

  He is talking to me. I raise my head. “I am fine.” I said that. I am not sure if I am fine. I feel my body crumpled around me; it does not hurt. “I am fine.” I have spoken again.

  "Let me help you inside.” The man with the legs bends down and puts his hands underneath my shoulders. I am being lifted. This is all right with me.

  * * * *

  I look at Felix Soutre. He looks back at me, monitoring me like one monitors a wild, hurt animal. He watches me sip the water he has given to me. I watch him and cannot help but feel very, very happy right now. “Thank you,” I manage. I feel better. He says nothing, but he nods.

  We sit in silence for some time, me sipping my water, he monitoring me. His face, I notice, has settled from an anxious expression into one of very neutral repose. As the silence expands into uncomfortable positions, I begin filling it with my anxiety. I feel the need to speak, for this might not be real. “I called you on the telephone,” I say, feeling immediately like I should not have spoken. Like arms pinwheeling before a fall, however, I also feel myself continue: “I was hoping . . . I too work with puppets . . .” I feel myself spreading thin along the surface of the moment. Why had I come here? “You probably don't recognize me,” I blurt out, immediately wishing I hadn't, actually clasping a hand over my mouth; but now sink into my chair, and see Felix mimicking me, hand clasping his mouth, exhaling out his nose. We look at each other in self-enforced silence. He is bald and his head shines. He is smiling. I cannot see his mouth.

  "Would you like to see what I have been working on?” he asks me, his voice in my head without having crossed the threshold of my ears. “Very much,” I reply in kind. Felix rises fr
om his chair opposite mine and walks toward the center of the room. I follow him.

  Several boxes occupy most of the studio space. These boxes range in size; some sit just below Felix's knees while others appear almost like small rooms, like what an outhouse would look like if brought inside. Felix enters one of these larger boxes, holding its door flap open for me. I enter this box.

  The walls around us are very white, so white, it is difficult to even see the corners. We stand on a white floor, on which white floor, I notice, sleeps a puppet. Felix smiles at me and winks. He looks down at the puppet. His torso then follows his gaze and Felix slouches to the floor. From his slouch, he begins moving his arms; pistons in an engine, I think. This continues for a bit. I notice that he is slowly rolling up his spine, a question mark evolving into an exclamation point. As he uncoils, I notice, cannot deny, that I feel water, or what feels like water, swirling first around my ankles, and then my knees. His arms sway back and forth, and my hips follow suit. The puppet jerks around on the floor, swirling around and around with increasing speed. Felix has just about stood up. Now, he moves his whole torso and focuses on the puppet; I am still moving, I realize, swaying so much I almost fall over. Felix turns his hands towards the puppet; the puppet responds to him in a way that can only be described as magnetically. There is something like a magnetic field here, something that actually seems to contain Felix's body. “Look at the walls.” I hear Felix say this. I look at the walls, those white, white walls surrounding us; a clear haze leaps up, liquefying these walls; I can see the fumes, like heat waves, surrounding Felix and his puppet and me; I swear to god I can see these fumes. Felix is looking at me; I am still moving, the puppet before me. Felix and the puppet (and me) ripple back and forth. Felix moves through this hazy, wavy space as if playing some type of tennis. He punches his hands and hips and knees against the heavy air, sending ripples out to me and his puppet. Whipping his hand around he sends an undulation towards me. My left leg rises up at the knee, and sails over the puppet, which ducks underneath my foot. I just felt that happen. (Didn't I?) I look to Felix, whose frenzied gaze makes hyper-aware of the air around me; I suddenly feel its weight; I worry that it might crush me. I see Felix's eyes; the weight surrounding me increases; Felix is still looking at me. I look back at him; I mutter “Sorry,” before I collapse out of the door-flap.

  * * * *

  I am sitting on the floor, my head between my knees. I hear Felix approach; raising my head, I can see his two legs. “I recognize you,” he says. My heart skips. “When we met before, you did not shy away from the weight of the space. You in fact increased the weight that night at the Donmar. Though it seemed crazy for this young man to jump from his seat and join the puppeteer, I understood what you were doing, and was so appreciative of your bravery. In joining me, you made my fantasy a reality. Realities require two beings you see. Of course, now people were confronted with our reality and so had to decide: do we want this or not? When my work was merely illusion, people could both live with it and not understand. By joining me in that moment on stage, however, you forced people to confront a reality they did not understand, something that was real. When faced with that choice, people chose to live without it rather than understand it. They rejected as reality what they had embraced as illusion. This was to be expected, I suppose.” Felix is now sitting across from me. I cannot speak. I know this because I have just tried to speak and I cannot.

  Heretofore I could not place my experience at the Donmar within my own life. Instead, like points from a parallel life, or like the dead weight of a pendulum constantly kept from the point on which it pivots, that experience and the existence it opened up defied connection with my present life. All my attempts to reconcile the two had been merely exercises in abstraction, always ending with me gazing across a seemingly bridgeless gulf. I wandered the banks of this gulf so long that I had begun to doubt the reality of the other side. Reading the reports of that night, I always felt as if that man were a parallel self; a person from my dreams showing up in the daily papers. Over time, the bank opposite me on which this parallel person mimetically prowled began dissolving as all dreams eventually do in the face of waking life; and I tried to hold on to it as I have always held to my dreams.

  I remember sitting in my seat watching the puppeteer. This puppeteer danced on stage through a space thicker than air; I remember thinking this. The hazy space connected the puppeteer to the puppet in the way heat waves can connect the house to the tree in the front lawn: both swaying upwards. I watched this in amazement, often glancing at those around me, trying to glean from their faces the answer to the question I could not answer myself: “Am I really seeing this?” I became increasingly anxious as I began feeling more and more of the puppeteer's movement inside of me, as if I was either making this happen, or (this really scares me) the puppeteer's dance was slowly shaking me apart, taking over the space that used to contain me. I try to give myself over to that feeling (anxiety, release); I feel myself dissolving and I gasp loudly for breath. I think others are looking at me. I fluctuate between embarrassment and oblivion. I try desperately to hold onto myself in the chair just as I am simultaneously shaking in the chair: I am trying to hold on to myself trying to escape. Seams begin ripping in the air around me. The puppeteer winks as up on stage I watch some young man slip out of my seat and into the pocket where the present keeps the future; and where reality keeps illusion and dreams.

  My intestines are quivering; I have now swallowed the future. Similarly, it has swallowed me, like the fumes in the white room. I might cry. “This is all very overwhelming.” “I know."

  "Stand up.” I stand. I almost immediately fall over, but don't. Felix leads me to another part of the room in which a smaller box sits. This box hits us both at the knees. It has no cover. I peer into it. There is a puppet lying inside. Felix looks at me. I look at the puppet. He presses his hand into the space above the box and slowly churns it, whisking the puppet up from the ground. “Look at the walls.” I hear this. I look inside the box where the puppet sweeps itself up, and I thrust my hands into the wavy hot haze swirling around it. The puppet looks at me in surprise. I see the puppet looking surprised. I hear laughter. I feel laughter. I push on the space inside the box, moving the puppet back towards the floor; Felix pulls on the floor underneath the puppet; it stands back up. Back and forth, we—Felix and I—pull the puppet in an emerging, clear taffy. I look at the walls. And then I close my eyes. The puppet disappears, and I pull on the space I feel around me. I tug at the resistance against my hands, and wrap it around my waist, tying it in a knot and pulling it tight with my waist. I stretch the sensation around my leg and tug it sideways; I push my head through the loop and entangle myself in this sensational thread spun from my fingers. I draw parallels. “Open your eyes.” I hear this. I open my eyes to see Felix wrapped and pulled by haze wrapped round my hips, his head tugged by the thread unfurling from my fingers. Winking at me, he tugs back, ripping open the space around us, a tear in the air out from which bubbles our dance at the Donmar, the past splashing out onto the floor where we stamp out the future. The two dissolve on contact, become the clear waves around us. I breathe them in and float on the space between Felix and me; between the past and the future, holding parallel banks together like puppets without strings.

  * * * *

  1 Most notably in Michel “Taz” Kwetwait's authoritative study, The Art of Felix Soutre, published by H—University Press

  2 Excerpted from Puppetry Magazine, 19 Oct. 1997

  3 Ibid

  4 Blume, Harry. “The Loss of Art into Illusion". Puppetry Magazine. 3 Feb. 1998

  5 As reported in “Famous Puppeteer Uses Human Puppets in Show” The Guardian, 15 May, 1998, sec. B

  6 Indeed, Blume himself argued that Felix was merely upping the spectacle following his, Blume's expose of the puppeteers tricks.

  7 Even Gepeto, who wanted so badly to make his puppet into a ‘real boy', idealized the father-role. Though Gepeto s
imply wanted his puppet to love him, he still wished to execute complete control over it.

  8 From Soutre, Felix. “The Puppetry Manifesto” in The Notebooks of Felix Soutre 1990-95. edited by Fred Nechevski. 105-114. London: O—University Press. 1996

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