Created by Estelle Charlier and Romuald Collinet in 2003, La Pendue create distinctive puppetry performances that tackle complex narratives. Based in France, they have toured all over the world.
This month, they bring their show La Manékine, based on the Grimm Brothers’, The Girl Without Hands, to the Barbican as part of MimeLondon 2025.
Ahead of performances, we caught up with Charlier and composer Martin Kaspar Orkestar, who provides the music for the production, to find out more about how the production came to life.
Q&A with Estelle Charlier and Martin Kaspar Orkestar
How does it feel to be bringing La Manékine to MimeLondon 2025 and the Barbican Theatre?
Estelle: It is very exciting to take part of such a marvellous festival program. We have previously performed at MimeLondon with another show (TRIA FATA in 2020 in the festival’s previous form) and we have very good memories of the run and the way the public welcomed us. We’re looking forward to performing the Barbican Theatre, which we’ve heard a lot of great things about.
What can you tell us about the production?
Estelle: La Manékine, based on a Grimm Brother’s tale, presents an enlightened and bloody female initiation, interpreted by a musician and a puppeteer, each multiplying their instruments such that the tale is able to fully resonate on the present stage.
When did you first become involved in the development of the show?
Martin: When Estelle started to think about La Manékine she asked me immediately to join her and I was really excited about her proposition, so I started to play around with some musical ideas. Slowly, with time, they became more and more concrete.
What was the inspiration to create a show with the Grimm Brothers’, The Girl Without Hands as its basis?
Estelle: To be the hands of this drama where the quest for the freedom to act and to love is played out seems to me an exciting artistic challenge: Manipulating the Manékine, is to undertake a beautiful paradox for a puppeteer in becoming the hands of the “handless”.
How do you approach scoring a show like this?
Martin: The music is developed essentially by successive improvisations with the puppeteer’s play. It oscillates between two opposite poles like the show itself.
The hand puppets are accompanied by very rhythmic, cabaret-like music and sometimes simple sound effects. The poetic pole is illustrated by music that is on the contrary lyrical, haunting, bewitching, even ritualistic.
Was there a moment when you knew you had found the sound you wanted?
Martin: Yes, I had the feeling that at some point the music was all coming together. It was like a big puzzle that finally found its resolution. We also had to discard some musical themes that were great but didn’t fit into the soundtrack.
The music had to meet the needs of each scene, the emotion being at the centre. Sometimes the sound reinforces the images by following their sense. For example, during the storm in the end. Other times by creating the ambiance quite different from the image, like in the final reunion of the queen and the king while the music continues to be dramatically uplifting to avoid being too sentimental.
How much has your original vision for the show changed as you developed the show?
Estelle: It has indeed changed a lot, in fact it has exceeded our expectations as during the show’s development we’ve discovered new themes, new characters and new puppet technics. At first some parts of the story didn’t seem interesting to us but they revealed themselves essential during the process.
Is there anything you hope audiences take away from the show?
Estelle: It’s always delicate to put words on it as it concerns the emotional sphere. There’s some notion of liberty we’d like to share, of love also, of course. And the capacity to create our own destiny, to take our life into our own hands.
La Pendue’s La Manékine runs in The Pit, Barbican 14 to 18 January 2025
MimeLondon runs in venues across London from 14 January to 2 February 2025.
