Freee Nighborhood Tour with Krystal Puppeteers: Tears by the River

Material Characters Touch Hearts and Minds:
Krystal Puppeteers’ Tears by the River

An Essay by Paulette Richards

A version of this review was published in Puppetry Journal with the permission of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival.

How do you fit an elephant into a suitcase? Children squeal with delight when the elephant heads that Fedelis Kyalo and Chrispin Mwashagha designed spray water into the audience with their trunks. The puppeteers use their own bodies to represent the rest of the beast. Their energetic dancing similarly animates flat cardboard cutouts painted to look like zebras. Holding zebra or lion heads in front of their faces like masks, Kyalo and Mwashagha embody the characters in much the same way that traditional African mask dancers “inhabit” performing objects. Indeed, a pair of traditional style masks are among the impressive array of puppets in all styles that appear in Tears by the River, along with hand puppets, tabletop rod puppets, and marionettes. 

Materials

Kenya is rich in natural resources and human resources, but money to purchase supplies can be limited so the Krystal Puppeteers always ask themselves if expensive materials truly serve the purpose of the show. Often, they are able to create ingenious solutions with inexpensive items. For example, live music is an integral part of the performance, but the globe-trotting Krystal Puppeteers don’t travel with a percussionist or even a battery of drums. Instead, they carry water drums. This traditional design is made from calabash gourds that are cut in half, hollowed out, and dried. Lightweight and durable, when they arrive at the gig, they fill the larger calabash basin with water and invert a smaller gourd section on top. The tone is pleasing and always attracts a lot of interest from audiences.

Mechanisms

How can an elephant climb a tree? Krystal Puppeteers demonstrate equal ingenuity in the mechanisms they design to control their puppets. Since puppets can readily change scale onstage, they made an elephant string puppet based on a simple pantin mechanism. Though eighteenth-century French aristocrats enjoyed pulling strings to make elaborately painted jumping jacks raise their arms and legs, by the end of the century pantins had fallen out of fashion and only children played with them. Pantins rarely appear in puppet performances, so Krystal Puppeteers’ adaptation of the pantin mechanism is a novel way to represent the elephant character achieving an improbable feat.  

Manipulation

Creative use of materials and mechanisms help Krystal Puppeteers convince audiences that an elephant can climb a tree. They find that the more time they spend with the puppet, the more they discover possibilities, and even the degradation of a control mechanism can lead to improved performance. For example, they had added some fabric to a bird puppet so that they could hold it in one hand. The wings flapped nicely, but when the fabric detached, they discovered that holding the puppet by the tail provided for even more beautiful movement.

Storytelling

Why would an elephant attempt suicide? Kyalo and Mwashagha use traditional folktales to address modern problems. When they were growing up, parents always used stories to teach. During the holidays, they would be sent to their grandparents in the country, where they learned traditional tales about the “iron snake” (the railroad) that taught the history of colonization. They also learned many of the songs they use in their shows. These days, parents don’t tell stories so much anymore. Kyalo admits that even with his own kids he doesn’t do as much storytelling. Still, he and Mwashagha are trying to maintain this tradition as artists. Tears by the River is therefore a modern folktale with a moral. 

As is traditional, Kyalo and Mwashagha chant before telling their story. They engage the audience with “Jambo Bwana,” a welcoming song they taught in their workshop during the festival. Everything is hakuna matata. Then they puppeteer leaves falling from the palm tree to herald the start of a terrible drought. Tears by the River is set in the land of the monkeys, so the hero, a white monkey named Libendi, sets out on foot to find food for his people. After days of walking with no sustenance, he sits down to rest under a tree and expires just short of reaching the river.

When the zebras discover Libendi’s body, they admire his bravery. The forest animals gather, weep, and praise the hero monkey. Then a bird announces that the animals have decided to name the river, the Libendi River. Libendi becomes famous. A mother turtle admonishes her child to “walk faster like Libendi.” A mother camel admonishes her child to “be strong like Libendi,” but Libendi’s fame does not sit well with all the residents of the forest. The lion says, “I’m the king of the jungle, why should that monkey be more famous than me?” The elephant says, “I’m the biggest in the forest, why should the river be named after that monkey?” Then he comes up with a scheme to earn more fame than Libendi by attempting to climb a tree.  

The absurdity of the elephant’s failed plan offers a reality check for those who might be tempted to eat detergent pods or film themselves attempting daredevil stunts in an effort to go viral on social media. Keenly aware that children and adults are not as creative as they once were because of increasing screen time, Krystal Puppeteers are dedicated to the materiality of the puppet as a medium of communication and behavior change.