KAYFABE is a puppet wrestling entertainment spectacular!
Table-top puppetry meets pro wrestling meets a rock show; high art meets low art meets Samuel Beckett! This 60-minute frenetic frenzy of puppet wrestling action is a semi-autobiographical meta-fictional love letter to professional wrestling written, directed and designed by aspiring wrestler and inspired puppet artist, Josh Rice.
Cast of Kayfabe, January 2024. Pictured (from left) Emma Wiseman, Rowan Magee, Gus Badger (lower left), Josh Rice, and Madeleine Dauer.
Portrait by Bob Doyle.
Kayfabe by Josh Rice is the recipient of a 2024 Jim Henson Foundation Production Grant and a 2023 Jim Henson Foundation Workshop Grant.
Kayfabe: how the ritual of performance bleeds into reality and how reality bleeds into performance.
January 2024 rehearsals. Photo by Bob Doyle.
Kayfabe is a puppet entertainment spectacular, epic in dramatic-style, rock-show spectacle, and emotional scale, but is designed in one-third-sized puppet scale (ie. a life-sized wrestling ring is 18 ft wide, the puppet-sized ring will is 6 ft wide).
The piece uses Bunraku-style table-top puppetry, cart puppetry, live-feed projection (instant replay) & object performance, as well as the wrestling tropes of matches, monologues, and music & video.
Kayfabe is the term used in professional wrestling to describe the adherence to not acknowledging the scripted nature of the world of wrestling. In kayfabe, wrestling is a legitimate sporting contest. Vince McMahon, CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, famously broke kayfabe in 1997 by admitting on-air that wrestling was scripted, and redefined the form as “sports entertainment,” acknowledging the reality of fakery we were in on all along. This Oz-like reveal of the behind-the-scenes mechanizations of the form shattered the fourth wall, yet fans continue to suspend their disbelief because they yearn for the glimpses of reality that creep into the form, blending our perceptions of fiction, fantasy, and the real. This blending of worlds is where wrestling best succeeds, as does puppetry. We map our humanity onto these performing objects to see glimpses of reality within them, animating the inanimate. In the kayfabe of puppetry, these performing objects are alive. This metaphysical approach to wrestling and puppetry is the essence of KAYFABE, examining how the ritual of performance bleeds into reality and how reality bleeds into performance.
Photo: Kat Kuo
Live-feed projection of Instant Replay motif.
Photo by Kat Kuo.
Philosopher Roland Barthes wrote, “the function of the wrestler is not to win; it is to go through the motions that are expected of him.” What is expected of a puppet when the persona of Dr. Kiss, and the tropes and trappings of the professional wrestling world are thrust upon them, as they barrel toward their destiny as the main event of PuppetMania?? Expect the unexpected when form meets function, when reality and fantasy collide, when the lines between real and fake blur—this is KAYFABE.
Projection design by Chris Carcione. Photo by Kat Kuo.
The puppet landing in the middle of the ring at the top of show. Puppeteers (from L) Madeleine Dauer, Emma Wiseman, and Rowan Magee.
*Masks note: masks here are stand-ins for a to-be-designed puppeteer wrestling mask, less lucha libre-style, and more American wrestling mask-style.
Photo by Kat Kuo.
SuperTeers (superstar puppeteers, from left) Madeleine Dauer, Rowan Magee, Emma Wiseman. Photo by Bob Doyle
January 2024 rehearsals. Photo by Bob Doyle.
“The function of the wrestler is not to win; it is to go exactly through the motions that are expected of him.”
—Roland Barthes, “The World of Wrestling,” Mythologies
But when the wrestler does the unexpected, anything can happen. KAYFABE by Josh Rice is a table-top puppet wrestling entertainment spectacular that celebrates the world of professional wrestling and exposes what you’re not supposed to see in the world of puppetry.
Photo by Kat Kuo.
Puppet for final dance inspired by Hachiōji Kuruma Ningyō (a hybrid Kuruma-ningyō-style/otome Bunraku-style puppet).
Puppet Design by Tom Lee. Additional assistance from Zachary Sun, Averly Sheltraw (studio assistants) & Jacky Kelsey (costume design).
Another example of the use of live-feed video and projection to evoke the use of instant replay in televised wrestling, this time to accentuate subtle moments within the dramatic arc of a match, like when a wrestler puts their foot on the ropes to break the referees count during a pinfall.
Photo by Kat Kuo.
Puppeteer Rowan Magee. At the top of the show, the puppeteers will be bombastically costumed and supported with theme music and montage video projections of them puppeteering, to evoke the over-the-top entrances of pro wrestlers in televised wrestling programming. The goal is to make the puppeteers as seen as possible at the top of the show, as opposed to keeping them hidden or a tertiary focus.
Photo by Kat Kuo.
Image from the opening dance sequence by the puppeteers. The choreographic score is devised from actual wrestling moves and poses, with the goal of introducing visual vocabulary from the world of wrestling and starting the show with vibrant color, sound, and movement.
Photo by Kat Kuo.
Inspired by Samuel Beckett’s Not I, the ropes of the ring made into mouths, speaking lines from wrestling promos. Puppeteered by Rowan Magee and Emma Wiseman.
Photo by Kat Kuo.
The puppet, in the ring, puppeteered by Ashley Winkfield.
Photo by Kat Kuo.
This 70-minute frenetic frenzy of the absurd, is non-linear, divided into segments & vignettes (like a televised wrestling program) that connect thematically & stylistically around one puppet character, all building toward the climatic “main event” of Puppetmania. Segments will include puppet wrestling matches, stylized dances by the puppet and puppeteers using the gestural vocabulary of pro wrestling, commercials inspired by early 90’s era wrestling, and promos (monologues), by the puppet, but also by the wrestling ring itself, brought to life by the puppeteers. We also make use of the motif of instant replay using live-feed video and projection.
Photo by Josh Rice
Inspired by the kuruma ningyo (cart puppetry) style dance, Sanbaso, the puppet performs a “victory dance.” Puppeteered by Rowan Magee and Ashley Winfield.
Photo by Kat Kuo.
A 4-minute sample of some of the puppetry sequences in KAYFABE.