We sat down with Inês Santos Belmonte and Lillith Freeman from Foreign Object, an emerging company that aims to investigate heritage, generations, and migration utilising object theatre and puppetry. Their debut show ‘Where Judas Lost His Boots…And Other Words’ plays at The Space 9th – 16th November. Tickets are available here.
What made you want to revisit your own immigration story on stage — and why now, in this political climate?
ISB: Now more than ever before, as we sink deep into a post-Brexit dark moment of mandatory digital ID’s and red spray paint that stains our zebra crossings, it is important to make theatre that reflects on the necessity of immigration, and the many who make that weighty decision in an attempt to better their lives. My story is not singular – although I may be white and European, and there are certain privileges that come with that, the many experiences the character endures in “Where Judas Lost His Boots… And Other Words” are universal: the resentment for being failed by the educational system, the struggle to adapt to a new language, the feeling of longing for a place where you can no longer be – all immigrants have experienced just that. This is a love letter to them, and to my younger self, who very much needed to see this on stage.
Your show blends puppetry, philosophy, and comedy — three things rarely seen together. How did you find that balance between playfulness and poignancy?
ISB: The narrative of the show is told from the perspective of an 11 year old girl as she navigates the highs and lows of a new culture, in a country foreign to hers. These are complex emotions – and 11 year olds have the capacity to feel them. The puppetry comes naturally as a child-like storytelling device since every character she encounters is constructed with objects and becomes an honest caricature – as this is how she would have perceived grownups at that moment in time. The philosophical side of the play, which is more mature in its content, intervenes the story every now and again to contextualise things such as linguicide (the murder of language), words in languages that don’t directly translate to English, and how words can gather community. Simultaneous playfulness and poignancy are drawn out of both these devices naturally, whether it be in the dialogue between puppet and performer, or explanations of Portuguese expressions that are silly in their nature.
The piece uses untranslatable words as a central device. Was there one particular word that captured your own experience of migration better than any English equivalent ever could?
ISB: The untranslatable word ‘Saudade’, from Portuguese, planted the seed for this project. It’s a word for longing, a sorrowful nostalgia for something that once was and can no longer be. It brings me back to my childhood and growing up in my grandmother’s house in Lisbon. That word is deeply ingrained in my family history, since most of my extended family has decided, at many points of their lives, to pick up their bags and go looking for a better life away from the home country. However, as we devised ‘Judas’, Lillith and I came across the word ‘Aduantas’ in Gaelic – an uneasiness that comes from being in an unfamiliar place, amongst unfamiliar people – which also perfectly captures my experience of migration.
Foreign Object explores heritage, generational knowledge, and trauma through everyday objects. How did that idea of “objects as witnesses” first take shape for you?
LF: Objects have always represented heritage and held generational significance. As the ancestor of both Czech-Jewish Holocaust victims, and East-Enders Blitzed out of the East End, cycles of losing objects and then hoarding objects in response have existed across generations in my family. The few heirlooms we have left from before the Holocaust have been the “witnesses” to all of our generational trauma. Therefore, after discovering object theatre during my theatre-making training it has attached itself as a reliable tool in my practice. Within our current show, it also organically grew from the childlike ability to find play in everyday objects, and more practically help build a lively world around our solo performer.
The company’s work is both political and deeply human. How do you avoid preaching while still provoking thought about immigration and belonging?
LF: It’s definitely a careful balancing act, but I think it’s found by always building from a truthful place. Our projects don’t actually grow from ‘we should make this show because it’s politically relevant’, they grow from the urgency to tell stories that are honest in some way, inspired by memories, verbatim, history, and folklore. And I think that is inherently radical in itself.
Where Judas Lost His Boots…And Other Words was born from conversations between myself and Inês about learning language and the things our grandmothers have lived through. And then expanded outwards as we spoke with other non-English mother-tongue speakers about their honest experiences and the words that they miss when speaking English.
For a young company like Foreign Object, Where Judas Lost His Boots… marks a bold debut. What do you hope audiences remember most — the politics, the puppets, or the poetry at its core?
LF: The most valuable part of the show is the poetry that Inês has written from her own experiences, this is what I hope the audience remember. However, as a director my goal is to create striking images that strongly imprint themselves in the audience’s mind, as vessels for that very poetry. Strong images of objects- like a talking sardine tin, cigarette box, lucozade bottle- become a means of remembering the simultaneously poetic and political feelings of longing and belonging that Inês aims to capture in her writing. In this synergy, of Inês’ words and my tableaus, we leave a lasting impression as Foreign Object’s debut.