Theo Terra is speaking from experience when he says, “To me, images and emotions are universal. The audience always understands and feels the essence of the performance and the story line.” Terra, in his 30th year as founder and artistic director of Theater Terra, has made a name for his puppet troupe across the globe. And now, for the first time, his puppet theatre is in Hong Kong with the musical Little Donkey as part of the International Arts Carnival.

And that first also brings up another for the company – a production with Cantonese dialogue. Back in mid-March, Theater Terra’s company manager, Joey Buddenberg, flew to Hong Kong especially to oversee a Cantonese dubbing for Little Donkey and since then the puppeteers have been rehearsing their show to the Chinese language.

“This way of performing is new to us,” Terra admits. “It feels a bit strange that our lines are spoken by Cantonese actors while we ourselves are performing the show in English.” Still, the songs will be sung in English by the Theater Terra puppeteers. “For us one of the most important artistic aspects of performing puppetry is giving colour and personality to our puppets. As we have no control over the texts it feels a bit strange to make our puppets come alive on stage. As you understand, we need text to give character to our puppets and, unfortunately, we do not speak Cantonese…”

For all of that though, Terra is sincere enough when he states, “All of us have the utmost confidence and faith that the performance will be beautiful” and their family-friendly performances will prove a delight for audience members from the age of four up. At the same time, he really looks for his Hong Kong audience to “feel the emotions and connections with the puppet characters”, like the eponymous Little Donkey, Mama Donkey, Party Pig and Yakky, whose tale of friendship, loyalty and cooperation is at the very heart of an award-winning work especially written for Theater Terra by renowned children’s author Rindert Kromhout.

Speaking of characters, the musical has eight, brought to life by four skilled puppeteers – who are called upon to manipulate two life-size puppets at the same time at certain points in the performance. Another novel feature of Theater Terra’s productions is that the puppeteers are visible on stage: “We do not try to make ourselves invisible at all,” says Terra. But rather than look upon that as a distraction for the audience, he considers it an integral part of their efforts to connect with the audience while bringing the puppet characters to life. “Puppets are very limited in their facial expressions,” he says, “but the fun part is that, although the audience cannot see the facial expressions on the puppets, they do see the expressions in the faces of our puppeteers.”

Terra goes on to note that his country is home to some 25 puppetry companies, all others “working in the traditional art form” whereas “the way we work with puppetry, being puppets-actors-musicians-singers, is unique.” But while, to some ears, his declaration “There is no company that incorporates all these disciplines into one performance like us in the Netherlands” may sound as though Theater Terra doesn’t value puppets as much as other troupes, when given a chance Terra is quick to talk up the advantages puppet theatre generally has over its human counterpart.

Referring specifically to Little Donkey, he says, “The performance starts with a terrible storm where everything gets blown away and the puppets are being picked up by the wind and tumble helplessly through the air… I do not see an actor doing such stunts on a theatre stage.” Terra also believes, “A puppet can make the strangest and most difficult movements while still giving them a very natural look.” This, he suggests, is because “puppets have their own eloquence. Although it is just ‘dead’ material, by manipulation a puppet gets a soul and is brought to life. And that already in itself is something magical…”.

Little Donkey will be performed at the Kwai Tsing Theatre Auditorium from July 20 to 22. Evening performances start at 7:30pm while the July 21 and 22 matinees begin at 3pm. Tickets are $200, $150 and $100 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.