THE THREE PERFORMERS, dressed as medieval peasants, animate the twenty one puppets and act in the play.  As the story is primarily a sung ballad, one performer is also a wonderful and versatile singer.  The haunting music is based on the beautiful traditional tunes of this ballad and of other folk melodies, and was played and recorded for this production on a wide range of instruments by the composer, Nuno Cristo.  The gong music of the final scene was performed on one of Toronto’s oldest Javanese gamelans.

THE PUPPETS are striking original creations ranging in size from a few inches tall to larger than life.  Janet starts the show as a flat “paper doll” and progressively develops, through rag doll and extraordinarily expressive Bunraku style puppet, to human actor as her character develops in the story.  For the faerie parade on Halloween, huge shadow puppets fill the entire backdrop with giant pulsing images of fantastical horse riders.  Then, in front of the shadows, the puppet Tamlin bursts onto stage riding a larger than life horse.  The music changes to crashing gongs as Tamlin is transformed into a snake, fire, an eagle, a bear and finally into a man in Janet’s arms.

THE COSTUMES were researched from paintings of the early 15th century:  the ladies wear vast headgear and train’d dresses; the gentlemen sport hose, robes and turbans; the knights are in armour; while the peasants, of course, have only coarse kirtles.