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Scotsman.com Living - Performing Arts - Kinny brings theatre to life for the deaf
AS a child, it was a puppet show that first fired Edinburgh-born actor Kinny Gardner's love of theatre and opera.
Now based in Brighton, where he runs the acclaimed children's theatre company, Krazy Kat, the 47-year-old recalls, "I remember getting the bus to the West End and going to see Purves Puppets. They were doing a production of an obscure Gilbert and Sullivan opera called Thespis, performed with glove puppets. That was what sparked my love of opera and theatre.
"Later, when Purves Puppets came to do a show at my school - I went to Holy Cross on Ferry Road - I was given permission to help them set up during the lunch hour. God knows what they must have thought about this spikey haired little thing wanting to help them, but from then on I was hooked."
For a working-class kid from a tenement in Leith, that glimpse backstage was a life- defining experience, and one that introduced Gardner to the alien world of the arts although, initially, it was his voice that got him noticed.
"Not long after, it was discovered that I had a very good singing voice and I was sent to the Scottish Boys Choir, where I had a special solo written for me by Benjamin Britten, and which I performed at the Edinburgh International Festival," recalls Gardner, who is also an classically trained dancer.
Today, however, almost four decades after he was first mesmerised by the skills of those puppeteers, Gardner himself is the entertainer introducing youngsters to the magic of theatre for the first time.
But his shows bear one striking difference to those he watched as a child, or indeed any other children's theatre company working in the UK today - Krazy Kat productions use British Sign Language, not English, as their first language.
Gardner comes home this week to perform The Very Magic Flute at the Theatre Workshop, where audiences will be introduced to a lost prince who is being chased by a dragon, a queen of the night, a kidnapped princess, a lonely bird-man, as well as the magic flute of the title.
Loosely based on Mozart's opera, the production is packed with puppets, costumes and magical transformations. Unlike many of its counterparts, however, The Very Magic Flute also features integrated sign language as a matter of course.
For the actor, it is a return to his roots. For it was here in the Capital that he first became involved in working with disabled people when, in 1979, he joined the Edinburgh-based Scottish Mime Theatre and quickly engaged with their brief to work with people of mixed abilities and the deaf.
Due to political constraints at the time, however, the company were not encouraged to use sign language, which frustrated Gardner who has a deaf nephew, and he soon developed a great interest in developments within theatre for the deaf.
"As well as singing, I also trained as a mime artist and as a dancer - I spent 15 years working with Lindsay Kemp - so my initial impetus into the theatre was always a visual one - the spoken language was not important.
"But, as I was working with a mime theatre, I couldn't talk to the young people afterwards to get their feedback. I thought there was a lot I was missing out on."
So in 1982, Gardner founded Krazy Kat with his partner, the late Alastair Macmillan. Their aim - to produce "children's shows which adults like to see", an ambition they achieved by combining mime, dance, song, Commedia dell'Arte, puppets and sign language.
With mime and movement central to the company's approach to stage work, physical communication always took precedence over verbal storytelling, creating a unique style of theatre for which Gardner had the ideal training.
"My first job was in the national tour of Godspell when I was 13. Then I studied classical ballet before working with Lindsay Kemp," he reveals. He also studied Commedia dell'Arte with Carlo Mazzone Clementi.
"Over the years my work at Krazy Kat has developed to the point where we now work with deaf directors, deaf actors and have deaf advisors.
"Although I was very deaf- aware when we started the company, I still had to go and take proper training."
Gardner spent two years learning sign language, which has become an integral part of all his work.
"There is no-one doing what we do," he says proudly. "We have developed a unique style of child-centred theatre that is designed to empower a young audience, being both theatre for children and theatre with children.
"The structure of the performance uses patterns of children's play. Our work uses a mixture of mime, dance, mask, puppets, Commedia dell'Arte, music and clowning, and for the last five years have created work where British Sign Language has been the first language, making our work SLA - Sign Language Arts.
"Each show begins with a simple explanation of how the 'play' works: 'This is the stage, where we tell the story; and this is the scenery and we might disappear behind it for a while'," says Gardner.
"We emphasise that they, as the audience, are the most important part of the show and this encourages a sense of involvement from the outset and a responsibility to the development of the play - it matters what they do."
Seeing the reaction of his audiences is, for Gardner, more satisfying than appearing on the West End, he says. "I love watching the deaf children get the same show as their hearing friend or their hearing brother or sister.
"They get the same laughs because it's not about the language, it's about the visual. That's what gets me out of bed in the morning. Developing the sign language, developing the visual side.
"What can we do next? That's the feedback we get from a lot of deaf parents who are just delighted to watch all the children seeing the same show."
• The Very Magic Flute, Theatre Workshop, Hamilton Place, 11am, today, tomorrow and Sunday, £6 (£4), 0131-226 5425 Suitable for ages 3-7
AS a child, it was a puppet show that first fired Edinburgh-born actor Kinny Gardner's love of theatre and opera.
Now based in Brighton, where he runs the acclaimed children's theatre company, Krazy Kat, the 47-year-old recalls, "I remember getting the bus to the West End and going to see Purves Puppets. They were doing a production of an obscure Gilbert and Sullivan opera called Thespis, performed with glove puppets. That was what sparked my love of opera and theatre.
"Later, when Purves Puppets came to do a show at my school - I went to Holy Cross on Ferry Road - I was given permission to help them set up during the lunch hour. God knows what they must have thought about this spikey haired little thing wanting to help them, but from then on I was hooked."
For a working-class kid from a tenement in Leith, that glimpse backstage was a life- defining experience, and one that introduced Gardner to the alien world of the arts although, initially, it was his voice that got him noticed.
"Not long after, it was discovered that I had a very good singing voice and I was sent to the Scottish Boys Choir, where I had a special solo written for me by Benjamin Britten, and which I performed at the Edinburgh International Festival," recalls Gardner, who is also an classically trained dancer.
Today, however, almost four decades after he was first mesmerised by the skills of those puppeteers, Gardner himself is the entertainer introducing youngsters to the magic of theatre for the first time.
But his shows bear one striking difference to those he watched as a child, or indeed any other children's theatre company working in the UK today - Krazy Kat productions use British Sign Language, not English, as their first language.
Gardner comes home this week to perform The Very Magic Flute at the Theatre Workshop, where audiences will be introduced to a lost prince who is being chased by a dragon, a queen of the night, a kidnapped princess, a lonely bird-man, as well as the magic flute of the title.
Loosely based on Mozart's opera, the production is packed with puppets, costumes and magical transformations. Unlike many of its counterparts, however, The Very Magic Flute also features integrated sign language as a matter of course.
For the actor, it is a return to his roots. For it was here in the Capital that he first became involved in working with disabled people when, in 1979, he joined the Edinburgh-based Scottish Mime Theatre and quickly engaged with their brief to work with people of mixed abilities and the deaf.
Due to political constraints at the time, however, the company were not encouraged to use sign language, which frustrated Gardner who has a deaf nephew, and he soon developed a great interest in developments within theatre for the deaf.
"As well as singing, I also trained as a mime artist and as a dancer - I spent 15 years working with Lindsay Kemp - so my initial impetus into the theatre was always a visual one - the spoken language was not important.
"But, as I was working with a mime theatre, I couldn't talk to the young people afterwards to get their feedback. I thought there was a lot I was missing out on."
So in 1982, Gardner founded Krazy Kat with his partner, the late Alastair Macmillan. Their aim - to produce "children's shows which adults like to see", an ambition they achieved by combining mime, dance, song, Commedia dell'Arte, puppets and sign language.
With mime and movement central to the company's approach to stage work, physical communication always took precedence over verbal storytelling, creating a unique style of theatre for which Gardner had the ideal training.
"My first job was in the national tour of Godspell when I was 13. Then I studied classical ballet before working with Lindsay Kemp," he reveals. He also studied Commedia dell'Arte with Carlo Mazzone Clementi.
"Over the years my work at Krazy Kat has developed to the point where we now work with deaf directors, deaf actors and have deaf advisors.
"Although I was very deaf- aware when we started the company, I still had to go and take proper training."
Gardner spent two years learning sign language, which has become an integral part of all his work.
"There is no-one doing what we do," he says proudly. "We have developed a unique style of child-centred theatre that is designed to empower a young audience, being both theatre for children and theatre with children.
"The structure of the performance uses patterns of children's play. Our work uses a mixture of mime, dance, mask, puppets, Commedia dell'Arte, music and clowning, and for the last five years have created work where British Sign Language has been the first language, making our work SLA - Sign Language Arts.
"Each show begins with a simple explanation of how the 'play' works: 'This is the stage, where we tell the story; and this is the scenery and we might disappear behind it for a while'," says Gardner.
"We emphasise that they, as the audience, are the most important part of the show and this encourages a sense of involvement from the outset and a responsibility to the development of the play - it matters what they do."
Seeing the reaction of his audiences is, for Gardner, more satisfying than appearing on the West End, he says. "I love watching the deaf children get the same show as their hearing friend or their hearing brother or sister.
"They get the same laughs because it's not about the language, it's about the visual. That's what gets me out of bed in the morning. Developing the sign language, developing the visual side.
"What can we do next? That's the feedback we get from a lot of deaf parents who are just delighted to watch all the children seeing the same show."
• The Very Magic Flute, Theatre Workshop, Hamilton Place, 11am, today, tomorrow and Sunday, £6 (£4), 0131-226 5425 Suitable for ages 3-7