Coastal Carolina University
directed by Sandi Shackelford

 

Tragedy of Tragedies, written in the 18th century by Henry Fielding, features a cast of characters that include Tom Thumb (obviously a tiny chap), the court of King Arthur and Queen Dollallolla (regular-sized folks), and Glumdalca, the Queen of the Giants. Our director was very interested in the use of puppets to create the necessary size differentials. After several discussions, we decided to build giant puppet heads to make everyone else look much larger than Tom Thumb, who was played by a small actress.

Unfortunately, the Queen of the Giants was also played by a small actress, so she got a larger puppet head and a pair of 8" platform heels. Lacking the resources to build puppet heads for the entire cast, we decided to make a dramatic point of the presentational, cartoony style of the piece by giving minor characters flat boards to carry with their character depicted on the front. These boards were decorated with my renderings, saved at high resolution and printed in color on our plotter. You will notice that the flat people have very long necks so that they will look similar in proportions to the characters with the puppet heads.

The dresses for Queen Dollallolla, Princess Huncamunca, and Glumdalca were made of scenic muslin and painted by Tymberley Wittrig (set and lighting designer) to further emphasize the flat, cartoony design scheme.