The Fisherman and his Soul

Puppet show based on a story by Oscar Wilde

 

Conceptualisation, design, fabrication, sound design and performance by Varun Narain

 

The Fisherman and His Soul is a contemporary performance with life sized puppets and props. A complex parody – a dark love triangle between a Fisherman, his Soul and a Mermaid in a world where ‘Love is better than wisdom, and more precious than riches, and fairer than the feet of the daughters of men. The fires cannot destroy it, nor can the waters quench it.’ In this performance ‘love’ is symbolised by character specific music based on Indian classical ragas and beat cycles 

 

In this performance, the material world and worldly desires are visualised using a combination of Bunraku and rod puppetry, whereas the spiritual aspect is visualised with shadow puppetry, object theatre and story telling techniques

 

The performance is intimidating, boring and scary for any human being below the age of ten