Contents page Hergé Biography 2
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- The Yeti Lives!: Creating the Yeti on Stage
Hergé’s YetiHergé’s decision to include the mythical creature in Tintin in Tibet is testament to how tales of the yeti gripped the public imagination throughout the 1950s. The numerous hunts for the abominable snowman provided thrilling copy for tabloids all over the world, and ensured the enduring popularity of the legend. Hergé is famous for his meticulous research of the real life people and places featured in the Tintin series, and his approach to the yeti was no exception. Hergé was friends with Bernard Heuvelmans, the scientist who had examined the yeti faeces discovered by the Slick expeditions and who authored the book On the Tracks of Unknown Animals. Heuvelmans provided Hergé with material that supplemented his already extensive file of newspaper cuttings. In his excellent book Tintin: The Complete Companion, senior Tintinologist Michael Farr recounts Hergé’s descriptions of his comprehensive documentation of the yeti mystery: “I had a list of everyone who believed that they had seen the yeti; I had a very detailed description of his habitat, his behaviour, photographs of his tracks, etc… I also met Maurice Herzog, who had climbed Anapurna and had seen tracks. He assured me they were not the tracks of a bear, as this was a quadruped animal that only stood on its hind legs on rare occasions. The tracks were clearly those of a biped and stopped at the foot of a large rocky outcrop… With all this information, I was easily able, as in the Moon books, to avoid the pitfalls of the legend.” But what is most striking about Hergé’s treatment of the yeti, is not its authentic details, but the nobility and compassion that he attributes to this supposedly fearsome creature. Hergé saw Tintin in Tibet as a “song dedicated to friendship”. The notion is reflected on numerous levels in the story, and not least in the way that Tintin’s unerring devotion to his friend Chang is paralleled by the yeti’s tender care of the Chinese boy. “My yeti is a being that also seeks friendship” said Hergé. “Already at the outset I had the intention of making him more human and not at all abominable”. By overturning popular ideas of the yeti as a terrifying monster Hergé makes a broader point about how easy it is to fear things which at first sight appear, strange, alien or foreign to us. This idea was clearly an important one to director Rufus Norris and playwright David Greig, who preface their adaptation of the story with Tintin’s line from the final act: “You said ‘poor snowman’… how strange. The only one who knows him and you don’t call him abominable.” Yet Hergé’s somewhat romantic vision of the yeti is brilliantly tempered by the bitter sweet conclusion to the story. The creature is left alone and lonely again, with Chang lamenting: “I hope they never succeed in capturing him. They’d treat him like some wild animal. I couldn’t bear to see that. I hope no one ever finds him.” It also should be noted that Hergé’s vision of a caring, sharing type of yeti is not entirely a flight of fancy. He based Chang’s rescue by the beast on a real life sherpa’s story of a little girl who was picked up and looked after by a migou (the Tibetan name for the yeti). The Yeti Lives!: Creating the Yeti on StageEarly on in the development of the production director Rufus Norris and designer Ian MacNeil considered using puppetry or animatronics to bring the legendary yeti to life on stage. The initial idea was that technical wizardry could be used to create a huge, towering yeti - creating a thrilling theatrical coup for the play’s climax. However during the course of exploratory workshops undertaken by Norris before the start of the rehearsals his approach to the character changed. It quickly became apparent that at the heart of the Hergé’s yeti was the beast’s humanity. Although it is vital the yeti should have an arresting physical presence on stage, the heart of the character lies in its emotional interior, namely the character’s compassion and loneliness. Not trusting a puppet or robot to deliver the required emotional subtly and richness, Norris and MacNeil began to explore the possibility of using an actor to portray the creature. Actor Miltos Yerolemu has the daunting challenge of embodying the yeti on stage. One of the breakthrough moments in Yerolemu’s creation of the role came at the recording session for the yeti’s distant cries. Veteran sound designer Paul Arditti kept the tape running throughout the session, whilst he and assistant director Lucinka Eisler encouraged Yerolemu to experiment with different types of cries: a cry of loneliness, a warning cry, a cry of rage, of joy. This playful approach to the yeti’s voice proved to be a useful route into discovering the essence of the character. What started as a deep, guttural, animalistic cry, eventually shifted into a higher vocal register in which the human qualities of the creature could be more easily expressed. Another useful tool in developing the character was introducing elements of the costume, created by costume designer Joan Wadge, into rehearsals. These included small stilts hidden inside the costume to boost Yerolemu’s height, as well as a realistic mask developed from a head cast taken of the actor’s head. But despite the intricate costume, the emphasis still remains on the actor, and the poignant, complex quality of Yerolemu’s characterisation. 6. MYSTICISM With its depictions of levitation, Buddhist rituals and prophetic visions in dreams, Tintin in Tibet draws greatly on Hergé’s interest in mysticism. In what is regarded to be his most heartfelt and personal adventure, Hergé chose to really indulge his fascination with the paranormal and spiritual. What is Extra-sensory perception? Extra-sensory perception or ESP is the name given to any ability to acquire information by means other than the five senses - i.e. taste, sight, touch, smell and hearing - or any other sense already well-known to science - e.g. balance and proprioception (information sent to the brain from muscles, blood vessels and internal organs). Because the definition of ‘sense’ is vague, the precise definition of ‘extra-sensory’ is as well. However the term ESP is generally used in reference to humans, and to imply sources of information unknown to modern science. Specific types of ESP include:
There are countless other terms to describe such phenomena, including sixth sense, female intuition and ‘doing a Derren Brown’. The word psychic is sometimes used as both a noun and adjective to denote a person capable of using ESP in any of its forms. Many who believe in ESP maintain that it is a power innate to only a tiny percentage of the population; yet some believe that everyone is psychic, and that most people have just not learned to tap into their innate extra-sensory potential. The study of these abilities is called parapsychology. Parapsychology also addresses a range of other phenomena outside the explanations of current science (e.g. psychokinesis, psychometry). ESP in Tintin in Tibet ESP plays a vital role in Tintin’s adventure. At the very top of the story Tintin’s holiday is disturbed by dreams - a familiar voice calling for his help across a freezing wilderness. Tintin soon realises it is the voice of his friend Chang, and links the vision to news of a plane crash in the paper. It is this inexplicable, extra-sensory vision that forms the basis of the entire adventure, propelling Tintin, Snowy and Haddock to Tibet, and convincing our hero to gamble everything on Chang being alive - despite a ton of evidence to the contrary. ESP then makes an equally dramatic intervention in the final stages of the adventure - with Blessed Lightning’s visions of Tintin in the blizzard, and then Chang’s presence in a cave below the Horn of the Yak. Without these bizarre, paranormal happenings, Tintin, Haddock, Snowy would end up resting in icy graves, and would never be reunited with Chang. Typically ESP is presented in fiction as a sinister and malevolent force, featuring in countless ghost stories and horror films. Yet with Tintin in Tibet, Hergé presents a very different perspective. Here ESP is presented wholly as a force for good. The numerous extra-sensory visions in Hergé’s story, no matter how distressing they may be at the time, are all preludes to rescue and salvation. For Hergé, ESP is a supernatural extension of mans’ capacity for heroism, compassion and love. Hergé’s’ Nightmares Tintin’s disturbing nightmares, and his journey to triumph through doubt and despair mirror the real life events of his creator Hergé. In the late 1950s, before he began work on what he was later to regard as his favourite Tintin adventure, Hergé was enduring a period of intense personal crisis. Hergé’s deep turmoil had two sources. Firstly the relentless demands placed upon the artist by the success of the Tintin series had left Hergé feeling stressed and exhausted. Secondly his 26-year marriage to Germaine (whom he affectionately referred to as Hergée) had grown stale and loveless. During this period of strife Hergé was plagued by vivid and deeply upsetting nightmares. These dreams had many different beginnings, but always the same ending - Hergé being overpowered and enveloped in the colour white. One dream began with Hergé being chased by a white skeleton that emerged from a white alcove, before everything turned white. So disturbed was Hergé that he meticulously recorded each dream and hired a renowned Swiss doctor, Professor Ricklin to analyse them. Ricklin’s advice: stop drawing Tintin. Thankfully Hergé did not follow doctor’s orders. But in many ways Tintin in Tibet can be seen as a defiant response to the Professor’s verdict. In the story Tintin ploughs on despite everyone else counselling him to abandon his quest. Likewise Hergé remained resolute. Although it is certainly Tintin’s bravery that drives the story forward, it is also important to say he can’t complete the mission alone, and is reliant on the devotion of his companions Captain Haddock, Snowy and Tharkey. Likewise Hergé was helped on his way by the new love in his life, Fanny Vlamynck. Vlamynck was an illustrator who had recently joined the Tintin studio, and her vibrant, energetic attitude to life (she was half Hergé’s age) reinvigorated the artist and provided him with a more positive outlook. Divorcing Germaine distressed Hergé greatly, but he was able to throw himself into his work, and create Tintin in Tibet as a positive expression of love, companionship and the never-say-die spirit. From his nightmares he drew the story’s bleak white landscape. From the death of his marriage he drew Tintin’s fears of losing Chang (Tintin in Tibet is by far the most emotional of the books, with Tintin openly shedding tears at the beginning). And finally, from his new life with Fanny, Hergé drew the compassion and heroism of nearly every character in the story. Tintin in Tibet is notable as the only Tintin adventure not to feature a villain. Even the much feared Yeti is revealed to be a character of deep humanity. Development of a Dream Sequence Rufus Norris and David Greig’s stage adaptation of Tintin in Tibet begins with a very bold choice. The opening scene of the production is a dream sequence. Here Tintin, over-tired from his constant adventuring, is plagued by nightmares - nightmares we discover contain an SOS message from his old friend Chang. Greig and Norris’s choice has many different reasons behind it. Firstly it allows the show to start with a bang. Tintin’s anxiety dream creates an intense opening, full of striking visual images and physical action. This starting point provides far greater opportunities for the production to grab the attention of the audience than Hergé’s more measured start (Tintin returning from an Alpine hike) that works so well in the book. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the non-realistic form of a dream, allows Norris to introduce the audience to all the elements that will be used to tell the story on stage. In the first few moments of the show the audience sees all the major characters, as well as being introduced to music, choreography and physical action (including a martial arts sequence). Not tied to creating a realistic, narrative-based scene, Norris is able to introduce the numerous characters and formal devices in quick succession right at the start of the evening. Tintin’s dream becomes a way of introducing the audience to the style of the production. This task is particularly important when the audience arrive with the memory of the comic books in their head. The dream sequence is a way of saying ‘you are now watching a stage show. This is how it will look and sound. These are the new rules of how the story will be told’. Also the dream provides the opportunity to introduce the plays eponymous hero. Norris’ idea was always to introduce Russell Tovey’s Tintin through the iconic image from Hergé’s books. That is why Tintin first appears in his trademark blue sweater and plus-fours and holding a real dog. The idea here being that once the audiences’ desire to see the Tintin as they know and love him has been satisfied they will be more willing to enter the new territory into which the stage adaptation must inevitably take them. Very early on in rehearsals some elements of the dream sequence altered greatly. Initially the dream was conceived as having the Tintin family (Professor Calculus, the Thom(p)sons etc.) all urging the exhausted Tintin to fight on – ‘You can do it if you put your mind to it’ while he himself pleaded with them to let him rest. It quickly materialised that this version did not fit the logic of the story, where Tintin battles on despite everyone telling him to stop. Consequently the exchange between Tintin and his friends in the dream was reversed. 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