Behind the Scenes

Joseph Cashore was 11 when he built his first marionette from clothespins and tin cans. Since then, and after much experimentation, he has become one of the most highly honored puppeteers in America--recognized by, among others, the Henson Foundation, the Pew Foundation and the Festival of the Puppeteers of America.

Currently performing with a full retinue of his creations at the Forum Theatre in Thousand Oaks, Cashore has made a lifelong effort to share a discovery he made as a kid. “I saw the possibility of bringing something to life--making it appear it’s alive,” he said.

He calls his creations “puppets controlled by strings” in an effort to distinguish them from puppets operated by a hand inserted inside or rods manipulated from below. Presently, he is putting on 200 shows a year--sometimes two a day.

He began this month’s tour in Belgium and the Netherlands, before stopping off in Northern California. This week he’s bringing some special performances to Ventura County for children who are being bused to the theater from 20 local schools. His Saturday evening performance is the only one open to the public.

The puppets, some of which require 36 strings to operate, portray characters representing many cultures. Music has been the inspiration for much of his program.

It was while listening to Vaughn Williams’ “The Lark Ascending” that he was inspired to make a puppet that would convincingly “play” the piece note for note, he said.

Cashore was trained as a painter--at Notre Dame University and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts--and earned his living as a portraitist and landscape painter while perfecting his art as a puppeteer.

His observational skills for portraiture is one of the reasons his marionettes are so lifelike. Another is his constant reworking of the mechanisms involved. “They are all works in progress,” he said.

Then there’s his skill as a performer, albeit out of the direct view of the audience. “When kids come into the theater, they [often] don’t want to see marionettes,” he said.

“I like the change that happens then--after two minutes I can hear little gasps--when they see how subtle the movements are.” It looks to the kids as if the marionettes are real. “It’s part of my job to believe it, so the audience will.”

The subtlety of the live performance is an important and complicated issue for Cashore.

For one thing, he feels that kids are generally not developmentally ready for his shows before the age of 8. “Younger, they sometimes cause a disturbance, talking, etc.,” he said.

Older children, on the other hand, get caught up in the live-theater experience he attempts to give them. “Seeing [a live performance] happen right in front of you is a different kind of magic.”

That magic explains why Cashore has resisted the idea of putting his shows on video.

Live performances also provide Cashore the opportunity to offer question-and-answer sessions after a show. “The questions are 50-50 about the mechanisms and about the characters in the show,” Cashore said.

Live shows can also provide a special opportunity for the budding puppeteer in the audience. “It has happened that a kid has brought along a simple marionette to show me.”

BE THERE

“Simple Gifts,” marionette production by Joseph Cashore, Saturday, 7 p.m., presented by Performances to Grow On, Forum Theatre, Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd. Tickets $10 for children, $14 for adults; reservations (805) 650-9688; Ticketmaster (805) 583-8700; or Civic Arts box office, (805) 449-2787.