People We Meet: Larry Reed, shadow artist

If you had to guess who in the Southwest Mission was a master puppeteer, you might stop at the door with the mannequin head peeking out a front window. 

You’d be right. 

That master puppeteer is Larry Reed, 79 — though when he starts talking about his craft, he seems much younger. He’s got a deep, booming voice, like a retired carnival barker.

The Mission has been his home base since the early ’80s. But his work developing, performing and teaching Balinese shadow puppetry takes him around the world. He’s the founder and artistic director of ShadowLight Productions, where, since 1972, he and his team have devised modern shadow performances informed by traditional techniques.

A trip to Bali as a young man first introduced Reed to the tradition of Indonesian shadow theater, where a dalang, or shadow puppeteer, puppets characters made of leather while simultaneously conducting a gamelan instrumental ensemble. But Reed wasn’t ready yet.

“They said, ‘You have to learn music.’ And I had never learned any music before,” Reed said. “So I didn’t get very far on that round.”

He’d heard from a friend about a group in the Bay that taught various Eastern musical traditions, now known as the Center for World Music, so that’s where he went. It was the ’60s, back when the city was cheaper and weirder.

“There couldn’t have been anything more fun than those times.”

Through the school he met his first shadow puppetry teacher, a man about his age, who came from a family of dalang.

“Usually it’s hereditary, because it’s so hard to learn,” Reed said. So his teacher urged the then-25-year-old to move into the teacher’s childhood home, in Bali. “‘Go to my house, stay in my room and study with my father.’ So that’s what I did.”

He spent two years learning the tradition, which included learning enough Indonesian and Balinese to get by, as well as Kawi, an ancient literary language recited and translated during Balinese puppet performances. He learned how to voice and articulate multiple puppets, while directing the musicians and other performers. A dalang has many roles.

“Conductor, and comedian, and priest,” Reed said. “And, you know, all the characters.”

Adapting to the modern

“In the ’90’s, I had the sudden realization that not everybody in the world is as interested in Indonesian stuff as I am,” Reed said. 

So, along with ShadowLight, Reed began creating performances that used Indonesian techniques to tell stories from around the world, with help from a diverse pool of artists. 

This past year, his company did an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” His next idea is still in its earliest stages: A stage adaptation of the autobiography of Jewish painter Marc Chagall, who was from what is now Belarus. 

And, with a small team of staff and teaching artists, they put on workshops for youth introducing them to the art form.

After 50 years of performances, did Reed have a favorite?

“Whatever the current one is.”