Object theatre is performance in which ordinary things — a suitcase, a chair, a pair of scissorsScissors and shears are the primary cutting tools in puppet ... More — are given life and character rather than representational puppets being used.
The premise
Anything becomes a character if it is given attention, focus and breath. A pair of gloves can be a couple. A rusted tool can carry a whole history. The audience does the work of recognising personality in the object, and does it remarkably fast.
Why it works
Objects arrive already carrying meaning. A worn shoe has been somewhere. A cracked cup has a past. A purpose-built puppet starts neutral; a found object starts with a biography the audience supplies for free.
The technique is the same as any puppetry
Focus, breath, and reaction before response. An object that turns to look at whoever is speaking is alive. One that sits still while things happen around it is furniture. Nothing about the material changes the fundamentals.
Where it sits
Firmly in contemporary practice, particularly in European companies and in adult work, and often in pieces dealing with memory, loss and history — subjects where an object’s own age does half the storytelling.
What it costs
Nothing. This is the most accessible form in puppetry and the one that most directly teaches performance rather than construction, because there is nothing to build.
The overlap
with found object puppetry is substantial, the loose distinction being that found object work often assembles objects into a figure, while object theatre lets the thing stay itself.
The hack: pick something on your desk and give it thirty seconds of breath and focus, on camera. It is the fastest performance lesson available and it requires no materials at all.