Alonso, the king of Naples

Alonso is the second puppet from the left in the photo. It is uncertain which characters the other three puppets correspond to, but we think that the puppet the furthest to the left is Gonzalo, an old adviser. Number three and four, still counted from the left, may be Sebastian, Alonso's brother, and the fourth Antonio, Prospero's brother.  

The puppet Alonso was played by Knut Wiulsrød, Gonzalo by Hans Rønningen, Stefano by Stein Kiran and Antonio by Per Skjølsvik.  

Sceneweb refers to the other puppets registered from the production. These are Miranda and Trinculo. 

SOURCES:

Oslo Nye Teater (Oslo New Theatre). Playbill from the production The Tempest. 

Donated by: Oslo Nye Teater (Oslo New Theatre).

Transported 07.08.2020.

Alonso had a handle fastened to the back of his head. This was what the puppeteer held on to and steered the puppet by. He also had a joint between his neck and his shoulders, so that the head could be moved in different directions. Around his neck, the puppet wore a large, white collar made of tulle, lace, silk and ostrich feathers.

His costume was black with posy sleeves, with stripes of silver. Like the other puppets, Alonso had very thin hands. They were constructed from metal strings, drawn with a skin-coloured rubber material. There might have been a steering rod fastened to the puppet's elbows.

Alonso's head was likely cut from Styrofoam and fortified with silk paper and glue, after which it was painted. He had a strict facial expression, a low forehead, sunken eyes, and a bald pate. His hair was cut by the ears, his nostrils were unusually large, and the sides of his mouth were bent downwards.

The puppeteer held the puppet in front of his own body, and thus he was partly hidden from the audience. This construction also allows the puppeteer to be visible with the puppet.

Alonso is categorised as a Bunraku-inspired puppet. Bunraku is the name of traditional Japanese puppetry. (For more information on Bunraku, you may have a look at and read about the puppet Yukiko).

In the playbill, the head of the theatre, Kjetil Bang-Hansen, wrote the following:

"The Tempest is likely Shakespeare's last play. His farewell to the theatre. The wizard breaks his wand, leaves the stage and withdraws, to reality.

It is a play filled with poetry, melancholy, cruelty and magic. And if there is a Shakespeare play suitable for puppetry, this must be it. On Prospero's island (Prospero is a wizard and the legitimate duke of Milan, Sceneweb's comment), air spirits and earthly spirits live side by side. Here are humans in all the puppets."

Barthold Halle wrote the following in the playbill:

"We have thought of Prospero as a kind of self-portrait, and Prospero's island is the theatre. The bard looks back at themes he has been through at an earlier time: The destructive effect of power on the one in power, the ever-new possibilities of pure love, the humour and force and dirt among common people. It is as if he says: 'I know all about this, I know my art and I am rightly famous, but in the perspective of eternity, this is strangely insignificant'. 

We perform The Tempest with puppets, and it fits our reading of the play. The puppets really come into being the moment they are put in motion, used by their lord and master."