Get imaginatively uncomfortable with Rough House Theater
Rough House Theater's House of the Exquisite Corpse III features this puppet by Grace Needlman and Pablo Monterubio, puppeteered by Lindsey Ball. Credit: Yvette Marie Dostatni
Last weekend Rough House Theater opened their annual House of the Exquisite Corpse III at a new space at Steppenwolf’s Merle Reskin Garage Space. As someone who has a hard enough time seeing the pop-up preview images of upcoming horror films or gory front lawn decorations that may or may not move, I was hesitant to jump into an immersive experience during the month of October. But I have a soft spot for stories told through puppetry (I blame David Bowie in The Labyrinth). The show itself delivered on spook season vibes as soon as you entered the door, but the concept and delivery turned what could have been a festive gimmick to an imaginative exploration of fear. Below, I spoke with Mike Oleon, co-artistic director of Rough House, about making audiences enjoyably uncomfortable, the artistic process, and his favorite moment from this year’s production:
Q. This time of year there are two groups of people, the ones who enjoy being scared and those who don't want any part of it. I fall into the second category but found House of the Exquisite Corpse III to be something worth giving a try, for some reason the artistry of puppets made it all more palatable and even enjoyable for someone who doesn't enjoy anything spooky. Have you found that to be common amongst theatre goers each year?
A. Fear can be a neat thing in healthy doses. It makes children of us. We regress to one of our most basic, elevated states, and I think that opens people up, but there are a lot of very good reasons why folks might want to avoid feeling that way.
Enjoyable fear requires a degree of trust and safety between artist and audience, which can be a tough balancing act. Most of our artists aren’t necessarily hardcore horror buffs themselves, and our most emphatic, returning audience members are the ones who say “AND I DON’T EVEN LIKE HORROR!”
At the end, we’re more concerned with sharing something intimate, personal and imaginative than we are with scaring the crap out of people. When an artist is committed to bringing life to an object, there is a sincerity that is difficult to achieve in other mediums. If you combine that level of sincerity with vulnerability, you can make something that resonates pretty deeply.
Q. The production is set up with separate vignettes, little peeks into private horrors, and each separate act features puppets created and put to life in many different ways. How do you decide which style of puppetry will tell each tale best?
A. The way the show works is this: 6 different artist teams with 6 different stories. We have a stable of consulting designers to round each artist team out, but in terms of style of puppetry, it’s dealer’s choice. In most cases, I think artists are drawn to styles that they haven’t played with before or are interested in employing a technique that is new to them.
There is always a back and forth during development between the story and the puppet. We often say that puppets are more like collaborators in storytelling rather than tools for storytelling. Puppets have desires of their own. The way they move, the way they they look, their size, their speed - these all inform the flavor of the story that they “desire” to tell.
An artist typically starts with one idea, they give it a shot with the puppet, find some friction between the object and the intended outcome - maybe the puppet is less menacing than imagined, so instead of being the antagonist, an artist might shift the perspective to make the puppet more of a victim than a monster.
Personally, I feel that the strongest works of puppetry are ones that have allowed for that discovery process in rehearsal. The result, to me, feels far more emotionally truthful if you are creating a work informed by the strengths of the puppet.
Q. The way the production is set up, watching the show through different holes, cracks and slits, almost voyeuristic in nature, allows each viewer to take from it what they witness or what they wish. How did you balance the added depth of story and interpretation with the surface level entertainment value of each section?
A. We encourage the artists to speak to a personal fear, and make it inviting. One of the consistent aims of the show is to draw audiences in to spend time with the uncomfortable, and to take a certain delight joining us in shadowy or squirmy places. The unseen is almost always more frightening than the seen, and it’s far more palatable.
Speak personally, have fun, use each moment to re-invite the audience, and you can’t go wrong.
Q. Each experience throughout the production is so unique, it's hard to pick a favorite. Do you have a favorite puppet or act, either one that was fun to create or the final result awes you each time?
A. Ah, the old “pick your favorite child” question. My favorite works are always the ones where the artists step outside of their comfort zone and commits themselves to really honing something that is unfamiliar.
I do have an image which keeps lingering in my mind, which is in the Kitchen scene, and the puppet scoops up a bowl of goo with a fork and he watches it drip down. The puppet is mesmerized by the texture in the exact same way that the audience is. It’s a great moment of puppet physics and real-life physics interacting that feels, well, exquisite.
House of the Exquisite Corpse III is playing at Steppenwolf’s Merle Reskin Garage Space at 1624 N. Halsted until Nov. 4. Tickets are available here.
