This performance, “The Sultan’s Elephant” by Royal de Luxe is an amazing puppet show – if you could call a (30feet?) tall puppet that. Maneuvers are done via long ropes, cranks and tall cranes instead of nimble fingers and threads. However, don’t let that set-up fool you. The motions are totally natural, without the slightest hint of a mechanical nature.
This puppet show is the most realistic I’ve seen – the puppet itself is already a mastery of crafts. The eyes, eyelashes, the hair, etc. as she blinks, wonders, ponders; the expressions on the wooden puppet that seem to almost quietly whisper you a question. Eerily real, wonderfully superb.
