In a Word... Zach Fraser on The Aeneid

Cultural Divides, The Immigrant Experience and the (non) Limits of Puppetry

by Gaëtan L. Charlebois

Zach Fraser is an actor, director, puppeteer and teacher. A graduate of École Philippe Gaulier (London/Paris) and Dalhousie University (Nova Scotia), he also completed an advanced diploma in puppetry at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Recent performances include Trench Patterns (Infinitheatre); The Game of Love and Chance (Canadian Stage/Centaur Theatre); The Hanging of Francoise Laurent (Stranger/Blyth,On); and Luna (Casteliers). Recent directing credits include Coma Unplugged (Talisman Theatre); Gogol's Le Révizor (Université de Montréal); and ... and stockings for the ladies (Rustwerks, Qc). Of late, Zach Fraser has been busy building puppets, including those recently featured in Scapegoat Carnivale Theatre's The Heretics of Bohemia at the Segal Centre. As a movement and mask teacher, he is on faculty at John Abbott College and has also taught at McGill University and the National Theatre School of Canada. He was recently invited as guest teacher to École Philippe Gaulier in France.

CHARPO:  I'd like to start with something quite specific to your interpretation. Let me present this: that puppetry is like mime, musicals, clown and opera - it appeals to a very special kind of theatre audience. First, would you accept that premise? Is this limiting or liberating?

FRASER: Hah! I do agree that puppetry has a bit of a niche following, but at the same time this is something I try to fight against a bit. Quebec is lucky to have an extremely vibrant puppet community, more than elsewhere in Canada. I try to feed off this wealth of diversity as much as possible. In the world of puppetry there are so many variations on the theme. And yet, how often do we see puppetry in mainstream theatre? Puppetry thrives very well on the fringes and among younger audiences but we tend to resist, or simply not consider puppetry as an option for adult theatre productions. (And when I say ‘adult’, I simply mean for grown-ups, not necessarily X-rated, though that can be interesting too!) Remembering that puppetry can be an option in any production is very liberating to me. By its very nature, puppetry breaks the boundaries of realism and pushes us toward metaphor, magic, and heightened theatricality. Puppetry can be limiting only in the fact that it almost always requires additional production time and funds.

Profile: Zach Fraser of The Game of Love and Chance

Trish Lindström and Zach Fraser in

The Game of Love and Chance (photo credit: lucetg.com)

Globetrotting on a Bicycle...

...with a Puppet 

by Amanda Siino

Halifax, London, Paris, Singapore, Montreal – these cities are all brought together by a Montreal actor, director, puppeteer, professor and family man, Zach Fraser.

The six- foot tall Fraser has been most recently involved in Centaur’s new production of Marivaux’s The Game of Love and Chance.  

“This project is a co-production with Can Stage in Toronto. So most of the actors are out of Toronto and most of the design team is French Québécois. Then there are the few of us who are neither Québécois nor from Toronto, so it’s a nice coming together,” he said while drinking his cappuccino.