The Black Manifesto

And, for the past two decades, Valantin has been religiously following her artistic manifesto down to the last letter. A true artist should make a strong statement, even cruel if need be, she says, forcefully.

Valantins FUST theatre, which she set up way back in 1975 as her exclusive mouthpiece, is considered to be one of the best marionette-theatre groups in France today. The puppet show has travelled widely to such diverse destinations as Columbia, Belarus, Scotland and Pakistan this year before pitching tent in India.

Even as she unwinds at the National School of Drama in the Capital, the 53-year-old is all vitriol. Its a privilege to talk to people through an artistic medium, she says, her earnest French lilt rippling across space. I hate people occupying the stage with nothing to say. Inane variety shows on TV, mushy melodramas or tickle-tickle-laugh-laugh cartoons just wouldnt do. In Valantins opinion, this is simply a vacuous, braindead affair; her falling-to-pieces world needs something far stronger.

 

A message, perhaps. And a hard-hitting one at that. Valantins show presents a series of short, adapted texts by different authors, mainly Russian dissidents who wrote during the absurd, surrealist period (1917-45) undeterred by Stalins terror regime. No flattery in their writings, says Valantin. Satirical and provoking, they had a very cruel view of society. Her presentations, understandably, throw up sombre, spare and rather bleak vignettes replete with black humour, dispelling preconceived notions that puppet shows are only for children.

For instance, Heart Piece is described as a declaration scene, where evidence is given that the offered heart is a brick. A Dogs Flair (Doesnt one have something to confess when the police dog smells everybody?) is the Lubyanka horror revisited. Today I am Getting Married talks about how Koka Brianski stifles his mother after having tried to announce to her, in vain, his imminent wedding. And Dispute is a rather absurd banter between two devils Kouklov thinks hes a prince and Bougadielnef wants to splatter him with soup.

I like that old Punch and Judy absurdity, says Valantin. Lets say, I like Nonsense! But beneath the apparent surface humour and flippancy, there is usually a powerful subtext. If you listen carefully, you can hear stifled shouts from behind the Iron Curtain. We intend to wake up the public which has been dulled into sleep by the television, she says. So even as you are busy laughing watching Valantin and her troupe flit behind their little castles, her little guignols are tying little knots inside your head.

Sometimes, Valantin has 19th century French caricature puppets juxtaposed against a stark modern text. Sometimes, its the other way round. The contrast is richer, and more generous, says she. They disturb you, these strange creatures hungry to be hungry devils, egg-headed panty girdles, beautiful ladies with Jolly Roger-faces. But what better way to express the derision than to put a skull and crossbones in audacious free-association with an exquisite satin dress?

Emilie Valantin started using puppets to say insolent things very early in life. Even as a child I preferred adult stories about love, sexuality, money, polity, says she. Valantin did a short stint in Africa as a teacher of Spanish, but abruptly cut short her career in 1973. I wanted a stronger discourse than what you get in a classroom. Disturbed at the progressively degenerating French culture, she came back and founded the FUST theatre in 1975. The hard message I wanted to get across needed to be couched in something elegant like a puppet show, she says, smiling. Quite like sugar-coating a bitter medicine. Soon her troupe of actor-puppeteers started performing impromptu in their inimitable style at various public gardens in France.

Unlike India, in France the mess is usually brushed under the carpet, she says. Valantin pitched herself squarely between the people and the nomenklaturas, trying to stop the American propaganda juggernaut from trammelling whatevers left of French culture. The young people are blindly trying to copy the American way of life that they see in Hollywood movies, she says. Its dangerous, as violence is the most important value that they have.

For two decades now, Valantin has been going around telling people to seek their own icons and junk Walt Disney in the cartoons graveyard. Some might dismiss her crusade as an exercise in futility. But then Valantin hardly harbours pretensions of being part of any grand endeavour. This is the disappointment of the intellectuals, she says, as she takes stock at the end of the day. We are sceptics, but not cynics yet, mark you. Yes, we have lost hope...but we need to keep on keeping on as if we havent.

Why? Perhaps were too proud to accept defeat.