Tarrare (2015-2017)

Tarrare is a practice-as-research project initiated by Director and Senior Lecturer Sita Calvert-Ennals that investigates adapting Stanislavski’s naturalistic approach to acting, as a methodology to develop and sustain multi layered puppet characters for an audience to engage with. In addition, she explores how this adapted method might be used to bring together the ethical/ practical and historical priorities of a piece that was using archive material as the basis of its story. This project drew upon research material developed by Dr. Laura Purcell-Gates, which uses primary medical research and archive material to explore the true story of 18th-century French medical anomaly, Tarrare.

The Depraved Appetite of Tarrare the Freak is the original puppet chamber opera, which became the final output of the research, and toured the UK in 2015 and again in 2017, and was funded by the Wellcome Trust and Arts Council England.

This collection comprises a single-component output with contextualsing information. Evidence of the central output, the directed performance of The Depraved Appetite of Tarrare the Freak, is provided in the form of a full performance video. Contextualising information includes a 300-word statement, research timeline, research questions, documentation of performances and rehearsals in photos and further video, promotional materials, storyboarding materials and and a production schedule.