After a schools tour that played to almost 11,000 Tasmanian kids, Paper Escaper has hit the theatres of the island. It’s a wordless show, told in images and sound, and tells the tale of a pop-up book character who tears themselves out of a boring story. The Maker, a force for order who slowly loses control of the situation, is fully masked and communicates with gesture, crisply performed by Noah Casey.
The design challenges were new and gruelling for this one! How to make puppets that can lie flat in pages that turn, then leap out and become animated? How can paper puppets survive vigorous storytelling and months of touring? We’re still learning from it as they age.
Paper Escaper is reviewed and thoughtfully described by Lesley Graham here