Untold Stories from the War with the Newts

Untold Stories From The War with the Newts is a work-in-progress for the end of the world conceived and designed by Sam Jay Gold. After initial development through the Residencies@37 program in Perry, NY this past February, Sam Jay Gold and his team of artists are thrilled to be returning to the New York State Puppet Festival with a full-length performance. Inspired by a classic Czech novel, Untold Stories From The War with the Newts wryly recounts an alternate history of the 1930s, in which the western world discovers, exploits, educates, arms, and is ultimately overthrown by a species of highly intelligent newt. It’s a story of empathy, transformation, and competing human values, brought to life through Balinese-inspired shadow puppetry, Czech-style marionettes, original music, and of course, newts.

Sam Jay Gold shared a little with the Owl about his performance work and what it means to him, and why he is excited to be a part of  The New York State Puppet Festival. Gold and his team of artists will bring Untold Stories of the War with the Newts to the Theatre@37 stage on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, June 21st – 23rd.

I am a theater artist, filmmaker, and puppeteer, based in New York City. Over the course of my career, I have had the good fortune of performing and training in a variety of traditional theatrical forms around the world. My own work is often rooted in – or at the very least inspired by – these traditions, and I am always searching for new, unexpected, and socially responsible ways to celebrate the storytelling lineages I fit within, while still making work that honors in my own voice. Untold Stories from the War with the Newts, the show I’m brining to the NYS Puppet Festival, is inspired by a Czech novel from the 1930s. It features puppets built in the Czech tradition, as well as shadow puppets inspired by Balinese Wayang Kulit, and original creations I built with “junk” found around NYC.

I have studied and worked in the theater for the past fifteen years. I think I was first drawn to its powers of transformation, and the ways it helps foster empathy and listening. I also just plain old liked making an audience laugh, and the challenges found in putting on elaborate productions. I came to puppetry, specifically, in 2011, when I received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to spend 12 months studying traditional forms of puppetry around the world. I lived in Prague, London, Kyoto, and Bali working with marionettes, shadow puppets, bunraku (three person puppets), and less-anthropomorphized objects. Puppetry is a very humbling art form – the line between a stunning transformation and a clumsy gesture can be razor thin. It asks a lot of its audience, too – their investment, projection, and imagination are all key to its animation. But it presents a world without inherent limitations, one in which anything be be more than it seems. After my fellowship year, I kept making puppet theater in large part to try to figure out why I wanted to keep making puppet theater. And that exploration brought me to a community of fellow artists who value interdisciplinary-work, who support one another through dynamic collaboration. Today, I work as an actor, writer, designer, puppeteer, and arts educator. I love how all these different jobs inform one another, and the way it allows me to approach a new work from many angles.

I think Josh Rice is making magic in Perry. We had the pleasure of working on our show in residency at Theater@37 this past Winter, and we can’t wait to comeback to share all we’ve accomplished since. I’ll be the first to admit that puppetry, as an art form, isn’t as wide-spread or well-known as it once was – especially in the United States. There isn’t a tremendous amount of institutional support available to us, and most of what is available is found in bigger cities. But people have been telling stories with puppets for hundreds and hundreds of years. It is one of the first forms of special effects, a means for making the fantastical tangible. It’s something you can master over years and years of practice, and something you can pick up and enjoy without any professional experience. It’s an art form rooted in person-to-person interaction, and that’s something that should be shared all around.                    

Learn more about Sam Jay Gold at  www.samgolddoesstuff.com