“At one point we were like, ‘It would be nice to have a camera rig that actually moves on the Y-axis; we could get a lot of nice dramatic moments that were in the book that we didn’t have the know how at the time to do,’” he continues. “It’s one of these things where, over the years, we’ve just been able to expand and keep challenging ourselves to try to tell the story in the best way we can.”

The show has now expanded to eight cameras, 20 miniature systems and 75 puppets (up from the original 30). The show requires a lot of coordination, multitasking and precise movements from those ensuring the story is crafted in a coherent and emotionally-driven way for the audience. In addition to their years of practice, San’s injection of whimsicality and heart means a lot is simply communicated through his design and classic sense of storytelling. The show has been described as “Pixar meets Charlie Chaplin,” the latter being a major influence on San’s work.

“Watching [1936’s] Modern Times was the very first time that I remember all three generations of my family just falling out of their chairs and laughing,” he says. “To this day, I don’t ever remember my grandmother gut-laughing so hard. I was six years old when I was watching this, and I was just so captivated by the feeling of the living room. Even back then, I said, I want to make this energy happen when I grow up. It was the first time my family was laughing – and crying! It was a very beautiful bonding experience. And it’s partly because there was no dialogue, so everybody can kind of follow it.”

San mentions that people often come up to him after the show, wondering how they were able to imbue so many emotions into the characters. Actually, he says, most of it was in their imagination – contrary to popular belief, the robot never cries. He credits the mastery of the puppeteers to be able to evoke personalities and emotions that relate to the audience with the tiniest nuances and head tilts. After all, despite its mechanical protagonist, there’s a much more deeply human question than a technological one at the story’s core.

“From a more metaphorical way of looking at it, it’s talking about aging or maybe moving into a different era in the world where it seems to be moving faster than you’re designed for. The robot keeps trying to find how he can still contribute, and find his voice in a society that’s kind of forgotten about his era of technology,” San says. “There’s this idea of looking back to a slightly slower time, a time where you had fewer bowling pins juggling around. Even my own daughters say ‘Oh, I remember when I was a kid, life was so much easier.’ What are you talking about? You’re eight!”

The show’s soundtrack was originally developed to accompany San’s original 2003 graphic novel, after a publisher asked San if he ever considered actually creating the song the robot was looking for. Breaking out his Wurlitzer piano, he set out scoring his book as if it were a screenplay for a silent film. Since then, as the live show has developed, the soundtrack has expanded from 15 minutes of music to 65, ever adjusting to better communicate emotional and comedic beats.

“We just take notes after every show and continue to sculpt it. When people hear ‘Oh, it’s puppets? It’s DJs? What? It’s a string quartet?’ They get very confused, but at the end of the day, it’s meant to be this old-fashioned love story told in this new way. You can watch the screen, but at any point if you’re interested, you can look down to the stage and see ‘Oh, that’s how they’re doing that!’ There are little lightbulb moments in those interactions as a spectator of the show.”

In conjunction with the show, San is also putting on three workshops at the festival: a continuation of his “Music to Draw To” series, featuring a creative space open to anyone to work on their multimedia projects with the same kind of musical accompaniment that gets San in the zone, an event to play San’s latest board game, and a robot dance party fit for the family where kids will construct their own robot suit and take to the dance floor.

“We’re just creating space for people to get into their creative zone,” San says. Despite an admission that the robot in his show is somewhat autobiographical, San has found fostering that kind of inspiration to be his prime directive. 

After the success of last year’s The Storyville Mosquito, Kid Koala returns to Massey Theatre for the only stop in B.C. with Nufonia Must Fall on Friday, November 15 at 7:30pm and on Saturday, November 16 at 4:00pm and 7:30pm

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