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Just Above the Clouds, a play about a boy with a stone heart, premiered at the Auckland Fringe last year and was a highlight for Renee Liang.  A glimpse into the mind of playwright Ben Anderson and full of quirky musings on love, life, loss and friendship, it features a cast of puppets, boxes and packing material all magically brought to life by devoted hands.  This February

Just Above the Clouds, a play about a boy with a stone heart, premiered at the Auckland Fringe last year and was a highlight for Renee Liang.  A glimpse into the mind of playwright Ben Anderson and full of quirky musings on love, life, loss and friendship, it features a cast of puppets, boxes and packing material all magically brought to life by devoted hands.  This February it returns to the Basement in Auckland, newly reworked.  Renee spoke to Ben and his co-collaborator Chye-Ling Huang.

Why do you make theatre?

Ben Anderson (writer and director): Theatre is an ideal way to explore really important ideas in a visual and narrative-based way. I like to tell stories, I like to make pretty pictures and I like to think deeply about things.

Chye-Ling Huang (collaborator and performer):Theatre is creatively freeing in that it combines so many creative disciplines together, there are no limits to the magic you can create. Theatre is possibility. It is also a deeply affecting medium, a vessel for change and enlightenment and humour. I want to affect people and create change, alter perceptions and stereotypes and lift the participators (those watching and performing) out of the mundane and in to that world of possibility.

How long has Just Above The Clouds been in the making?

Ben: I started 'writing' the script in 2012. It's mostly presented in pictures actually, so really I started drawing stuff in 2012. We then devised our first season from that script which we performed as a part of Auckland Fringe in 2013.

How much has the show changed since you debuted it at the Auckland Fringe last year?

Ben: Enough that it's a different show, but not enough that it's unrecognisable. Probably half and half. Sorta took the bits we liked and played with them more, and took the bits we didn't like as much and reworked them. Half the cast is different to, so that's brought a lot of new perspective to things.

How did you bring the creative team together; and can you introduce us to some of the key people?

Ben: I love working with people who get just as passionate as me about the seemingly insignificant things. Those are often the things which are most magical on stage. I love my cast of silly, playful people. Never a dull moment. Turns out you can find humour in ANYTHING. Britney Pilling is my co-set-designer. I love going around Mitre 10 Mega dreaming up ways to use all the weird stuff we find. Britney's also pretty amazing with a craft knife and some cardboard. Seriously, come and see the tree she made for the show. I actually cried when I saw it. Actually. I love working with Ruby Reihana-Wilson as a lighting designer. She and I could discuss the nuances of colour forever.

How much is it based on real life experiences?

Ben: Uuuugh. It's like a collage of real life experiences mixed with imagined stuff. At the end of the day though, it's all real enough.

What is the advantage of puppets over real people?

Ben: When you see an actor play a character, regardless of how convincing they are, subconsciously you know that after the show they go home to their real life. With a puppet, their only persona is that with which they're endowed. It's almost easier for us to suspend our disbelief for a puppet because in a strange way, they're more genuine about who and what they are.

Chye-Ling: Puppetry has been such a freeing and fun world for me to explore because you instantly have license to be as crazy as you want with your ideas, especially because all of the puppets are designed and made by Ben Anderson, Brittany Pilling and anyone else who wants to have creative input including myself. Puppets have abilities that humans don't - they can fly, defy gravity and time, move in ways you wouldn't be able to imagine. They can also be incredibly relatable as they have all the personality and emotive capacity of the human soul, but can be stripped back into the very essence of that nature - the audience can view them free of judgement or preconception because their very form is once removed. Paradoxically, this leads to an insanely deep connection for audience when puppetry is done well.

Can you let us in on some of the details of how you make a show like this?  Is most of the work 'on the floor' or is there a large writing component?

Ben: The script is very visual. It's partly written in a conventional way and partly... not. The script sort of becomes a springboard for the show in that each scene and each moment needs to be devised rather than blocked. I like how the end product becomes a genuine group effort where each performer takes a small authorial role in the work. I also like that you get the best of both worlds in that you get the magical moments which only come from devising, but at the same time you have the benefit of a preexisting narrative and structure. So the work is done both on the floor by performers and in Q's cafe by the writer.

What's been the most technically challenging aspect?

Ben: 200 cardboard boxes which will need resetting every night.

Chye-Ling: There has been a stronger musical element compared to the last show. It can be challenging to pin down a song when you suddenly devise the perfect a capella score on the spot by accident!

Do you believe in love?

Ben: Hundred percent yes.

Chye-Ling: I sure do.

Can you let us in on some of the details of how you make a show like this?  Is most of the work 'on the floor' or is there a large writing component?

Chye-Ling: Ben has written the script like a picture book. Each page is beautifully illustrated and instantly we have a strong ideal of what the scene looks and most importantly feels like. From there, we try to devise ways to create that using what we have in the room (mainly boxes, brown paper and packing tape).

What are you working on next?

Ben: I'm doing set design for Mo & Jess Kill Susie which is on late Feb/early March at The Basement. Looking forward to that. Also, a myriad of writing/making projects. I anticipate my year will involve a lot of gorillas, airplanes and corpses...

Chye-Ling: I’m working on Renee Liang's new theatre project Paper Boats as well as my theatre company's Pretty Asian Theatre's upcoming show Lantern, also by Renee Liang, which is a part of 2014's Lantern Festival this year, as well as working on a devised piece for PAT.