Review: An Evening with John Tartaglia

This can’t possibly be a review: it wasn’t a show! Instead, one of the festival artistic directors interviewed John Tartaglia, in the style of an informal discussion. But it’s worth mentioning what the interview was about, especially as I know a couple of people who would be interested in it (Sean, Jarrod, you’re going to hate me after this).

We sort of take a trip through Tartaglia’s life, from his growing up in an artistic/theatre-related household; to his wish to be on The Muppets as a young child and his experiences that eventually landed him there. From his role in Avenue Q (as Rod), to his own TV show… and on to his current roles in Shrek the Musical.

The fun parts of the evening was that we got some actual live performance. He brought out Rod, and sung My Girlfriend, Who Lives in Canada. This was a good opportunity for me to compare and contrast from our Aussie version; and boy, were my friends and fellow theatre-people right! Tartaglia is ten times better than Mitchell Butel (read my review here), and put concrete to my thoughts on a conversation I had with another reviewer - that it doesn’t matter if you can see the performer, if the manipulation is really good, your eyes would be drawn naturally to the puppet and not the performer. Tartaglia had that in spades, and when I challenged myself to watch him, I found it incredibly uncomfortable!

He then talked about his own TV show, Johnny and the Sprites (as it happens, two of these puppets had been walking around the foyer before the show started, but I didn’t know until this part of the interview, seeing as how I’d never seen or heard of the show before). My favourite part of this evening, in fact, the whole day, is what followed. Presented just for us, we got to see a blooper reel from the show. I haven’t laughed as hard all week; it was hil-air-ious! There were all sorts of bloopers, from fluffed lines to props that don’t work; from puppeteers being silly, to directors walking into shot at random. Honestly, if you ever manage to find bloopers of this show, watch them!

And finally, we got to hear about Shrek, which whilst I’ve heard of it, had not paid much attention to the publicity. (I hardly ever pay attention to shows in the US, seeing as how I either don’t have an opportunity to see them here/there - confusing! - or in Australia) But after seeing what followed his intro, I definitely want to try and catch it if it comes down under. Tartaglia performs pinocchio, the mirror, and operates part of the dragon (the blinking eyes and something else, I forget what). He presented a behind-the-scenes video that he took of the show. We first watch him get made up in the Pinocchio makeup, and the nose that he wears: it’s a head piece, with a telescopic nose that runs to a hand-operated lever (the lever is on the inside of his palm). We then see him operate the mirror - which is actually a virtual effect, done with 26 sensory devices applied to his face. Within a room away from the actual stage, he sits in front of lots of cameras, which pick up the devices and via computer connection in another room, it gets interpreted into what you’d see in the movie version. He also filmed what he sees in the room: a joystick-operated camera allows him to see the stage and ‘interact’ with the audience; as well as a feed of what the mirror ends up looking like onstage.

Finally, we get to see from inside the dragon, from his point of view. This I can’t really describe, because it was like going through some sort of sci-fi ride at Disneyland. It was very hard to see what was going on, although you could make out the inside of the blinking eyes, as well as Tartaglia’s view out of the mouth; of the stage and dancing characters. And then for a few seconds, we see Tartaglia on stage performing as Pinocchio.

We ran out of time here, and those who were so inclined went out to the foyer to ask questions. I was tempted to go, but wanted to keep my feet resting so I didn’t…

… Should I give this a rating? It seems silly to lump this in with the shows, considering it wasn’t. So I’m not going to. All in all, a very enjoyable evening. It was interesting to hear his story, and the visual aids were fun to watch.

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