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Custom-tailored to fit the newly built Scene 1: The Hamlet Syndrome Greensboro Arts Center (gifted to the little Alternate voices reading “To Be or Not To Be” while young and old town of Greensboro in the Northeast Kingdom FDUGERDUGZLQJHGSXSSHWHHUVÁ\RYHUWKHVWDJH of Vermont by a philanthropist) performed Scene 2: Naked Ghost by dedicated friends, Bread and Puppet Fist puppet guards in small box-stage comment on the appearance geezers and neighbors young and old (8-84) of the Naked Ghost giant as it rises and collapses. made themselves available as much as they could afford for four rehearsals and one dress Scene 3: Death rehearsal with everybody attending, in April To a concert of trumpet and vacuum cleaner, giant Death, tattooed with 2018 while the resident company was on tour. WKH´2WKDWWKLVWRRWRRVROLGÁHVKZRXOGPHOWµVROLORTX\ULVHVZKLOHD high school textbook interprets Hamlet’s mind and a seven foot pointer- The urgency of the production was rooted in puppet singles out the appropriate lines on the body of Death. the out-of-joint politics of the day that resulted in Trump’s out-of-joint kingdom and needed Scene 4: The Dumb Show to be compared to this classic tale of another ,QWURGXFHGE\JLUOVGDQFLQJDQ,ULVKMLJDQGWKHQSOD\LQJÀGGOHV out-of-joint kingdom. Greensboro’s Stratford- to accompany the clowns miming of the King’s murder. upon-Avon imitation theatre replaces the sky Scene 5: How to Play a Flute of the original with a very high ceiling graced :LWKWKHKHOSRIÁXWHDQGFORXGÀVWSXSSHW+DPOHWSURYHV*XLOGHQVWHUQ with several excellent catwalks that inspire and Polonius to be fools. giant marionettism. Since our business as well as our no- Orchestral Interlude business-at-all is puppetry, we took the cue from Conducted improvised orchestra alternates with recital of Hamlet’s the catwalks to launch 30-foot cardboard giants soliloquy, “I have of late lost all my mirth.” into the above-the-heads-of-the-audience space. Scene 6: Hamlet and His Mother Puppetry traditionally mocks the legitimate $ÀVWSXSSHWPXUGHUP\VWHU\IHDWXULQJ+DPOHWKLVPRWKHUDQG theatre’s life-sized, lifelike reality with its under- Polonius who is murdered by an oversized wooden sword, followed by and oversized irreality and thereby replaces the recital of Emily Dickinson’s, ”I’m nobody! Who are you?” dramatic arts life-imitation ambition with the genuinely fake cardboard life that rises from Scene 7: Two Realities +DPOHW·VH[LVWHQWLDOLVWUHÁHFWLRQVDOWHUQDWHZLWK7UXPS·V DURRVWHU the garbage bins of our civilization like Venus election campaign boasts. from the mist of the ocean. Limited rehearsal time required truncating the play and pasting Scene 8: Ophelia the text excerpts together willy-nilly. To the music of “Sing willow, willow, willow” and the Queen’s King, Naked Ghost, Death and Ophelia description of Ophelia’s suicide, cardboard Ophelia rises, traverses the were selected to be giants. Hamlet, his mother, stage and collapses into her grave. Polonius, Laertes, Guildenstern and Trump are Scene 9: The Gravediggers fist puppets performing in a peepshow-sized Two miming clowns re-enact the grave-digger text followed by King box-stage. puppet’s rising and Laertes’ call for uprising and crowd running wildly Besides Shakespeare, we quoted a high all over the place. school textbook, Emily Dickinson and Trump. The play is organized into nine scenes, one Epilogue orchestral interlude with a Hamlet soliloquy and The Out of Joint Dance Company performs the U.S. Congress’s favorite an epilogue. The show is situated in front of a incompetence dance—a series of jerky, staccato steps and grabbing movements that pull down and discard the giant Death puppet. starry sky pierced by falling bodies and topped The play ends with three girls singing a beautiful ancient Serbian by a row of upside down baby-sized citizens &(1*5&'(6&1%*+#))#()*3#1!(*2#1(&(6#1#(/-6&+("-""#)##1( love song high above the scene of destruction below them. that hang above it all till the very end, &+.(#2#+(&(/%7/8/&))#.("*%+)#1("-""#)(%+(41#&.(9("-""#):!( "/*)*<(=*!#"/(71#!!#1 when they descend and collapse. —Find the 2018 cast list on the web— "1*.-$)%*+(*;(!"!#$$%("&!'"(')"*+!',#-$.!/( # $ !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*",
MacNeil, a puppeteer and member poison into the king’s ear. He went on Even the tweets of Donald Trump, of the Highland Center staff, served as to seduce the new widow with help delivered in deadpan fashion by Mer- & ",## * ! Death’s herald, walking slowly behind from a bit of U.S. currency. edith Holch, were interpolated into the the audience and wielding a backpack When the hand puppet Hamlet ap- show as if coming from the mouth of a + * &!( vacuum cleaner, followed by his accom- peared in the next scene, the 30-foot- puppet chicken. panist, Ralph Denzer on trumpet. tall marionette of the king knelt to The drowning of Ophelia was pre- Shakespeare would have recognized watch him. sented as a ballet between a large mari- the style in which Bread and Puppet Hamlet out-maneuvered Rosen- onette and a clown, as Shakespeare’s played the dumb show, intended by crantz, a fellow student from college, description of her discovery floating * Hamlet to expose King Claudius’ guilt and the courtier Polonius, both of near a grove of willows was read. in his father’s murder. whom tried to get the prince to speak For all of Hamlet’s talk of suicide, The prelude of the play within a with his mother. it was Ophelia who actually took the by Joseph Gresser, play featured puppeteers Ava Purdy and In his scene, Polonius allowed fatal step, an action carefully analyzed Beatrix Avery who played a violin duet himself to be led around by the young by a pair of clown grave diggers in a for the Chronicle 4-11-18 followed by an Irish step dance. prince as Hamlet kept changing his later scene. /&6'#)(.%!"&)$/#!("*'*+%-!(3%)/(&()/1-!)( Three white-masked clowns then mind about what animal he saw in The two are very interested in the GREENSBORO — Peter Schumann, founder and director *;(/%!(6%7/)5(!3*1.(&!()/#(>-##+('**0!(*+? took the stage as Eva Lander accompa- a cloud. As his superior claimed to question of why a person who took her of the Bread and Puppet Theater, has long proved himself nied their actions on her fiddle. see first a camel, then a weasel, and, own life should be allowed a Christian adept at adapting his shows to the dimensions of any given A skewed grid of strings that fell from the theater’s The clowns used simple props to finally, a whale in the cloud, the older burial. They investigate the issue from performance space. He is less well known for staging plays ceiling sliced the stage picture, much as performers take on the identity of characters in their man dutifully followed, claiming to the point of view of theology as well as from the canon of English theater. So it was more of a carved up the traditional order of the play. little play. One, for instance, pasted a see what Hamlet claimed to see. logic, but can only explain it by saying surprise to hear Mr. Schumann planned to tackle Hamlet, The first words delivered by the performers were cardboard crown onto his hat to assume Polonius perished at Hamlet’s “she was a gentlewoman.” perhaps the most revered of Shakespeare’s plays, than to “To be or not to be,” from Hamlet’s Act III soliloquy. the role of king. hand in a morbidly hilarious scene. That is, the two comic characters learn he would put on his production at the new Highland Under Mr. Schumann’s direction, they were spoken Assassination was transformed into The courtier, who hid behind a curtain come to the conclusion that rules, even Center for the Arts. by individual players and groups in a kind of canon. comedy when the killer uses a pair of to eavesdrop on the conversation be- those of the church, do not apply to those As the near capacity crowd learned Saturday evening, Solo voices occasionally overlapped or interrupted oversized props to show how he put tween the queen and her son, made a at the top of society. Mr. Schumann and his 26-member company were more each other as they spoke the familiar words. The noise. The suspicious prince grabbed a than ready to meet the challenge with a ravishingly beautiful performers sometimes jumbled the sequence of the sword (one five or six times his height) version of the classic play that uncovered its buried political speech. At other moments they repeated key phrases. and ran the old man through much to subtext. Mr. Schumann used the center’s tall cylindrical hall, The effect of the opening scene, like that of the the audience’s delight. itself based on Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, to full advan- entire performance, was to pull the audience from a While most of the performance was tage, stringing immense cardboard figures from the catwalks comfortable evening with a familiar play and force it built around the Bard’s words, Mr. overhead, and using them as marionettes, controlled by the to hear Shakespeare’s words anew. Schumann added some other elements members of what was called The Bread & Puppet Friends A hand puppet theater was rolled on stage for the to the mix. and Neighbors String Pulling Company. second scene. The tiny stage’s proscenium was deco- At one point, Ms. Lander again The show lived up to its official name, Totally Out of rated with a selection of mouse traps, a witty reference took the stage in company with Ma- Joint Hamlet, a title referring to how Hamlet sees his own to the play-within-a-play in Shakespeare’s original, ria Schumann and Emily Gletsos. time, but also to Mr. Schumann’s methodology. The director which Hamlet titles “The Mousetrap.” Ms. Lander read Emily Dickinson’s took apart Shakespeare’s text and reassembled it to highlight The first set of puppets seen on the little stage was poem, “I’m nobody! Who are you?” the out-of-jointness of the present political moment. delivered by a quartet of bare hands who related the followed by a song performed by Ms. Mr. Schumann, who served as conductor for the per- appearance of a ghost on the ramparts of Elsinore Schumann and Ms. Gletsos. formance, was first to appear on stage, wandering out to a castle and then discussed by Hamlet himself in the The entire cast showed up on stage position at the side of the thrust stage. There he sat, for most form of a flat cardboard hand puppet. at another point, saying “chairs, chairs, of the show, ringing a bell to signal the start of each scene Death himself, depicted as a large a giant flat mari- chairs.” When enough chairs were and calling its title. onette skeleton with a cartoonish face, made his ap- in place, the company sat down and The first toll of the bell called the white-clad company pearance early in the show. Inscribed all over Death’s played an improvised piece as Mr. from the darkness to stand, spread out across the stage, body was Hamlet’s soliloquy beginning “O God! O Schumann conducted. under a mural-sized canvas depicting people falling head God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to first from a starry sky. me all the uses of this world.” &(!#1#+#(#2&('&+.#1("'&5!(&!()/1##($'*3+!(&$)( "/*)*!<(=*!#"/(71#!!#1 *-)()/#(6-1.#1(*;(&(0%+7(%+()/#(.-64(!/*3(!$#+#?((
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Mr. Schumann left the viewer with a suggestion that “I’ll have to cut the legs off the puppets,” Mr. Schumann such a society cannot endure. mused, as he thought of putting on the show at the company’s At the end of his adaptation of Hamlet, a crowd of home theater with its lower ceilings. ordinary people rendered in painted cardboard join the Those who missed the Greensboro performances would mural’s falling figures and press down on the struggling be well-advised to keep their eyes peeled in case Mr. clowns and king alike, pressing them to the earth. Schumann figures out a way to recreate the work in a less A chorus of children standing in the musician’s bal- glorious setting than the Highland Center. cony high above the stage sang a Georgian song as the stage went black. JOSEPH GRESSER is a reporter for the Chronicle, As so often happens in a Bread and Puppet play, the a weekly newspaper published in Barton, Vermont. audience was startled to realize the show was done, but In a previous life, he spent nearly a decade mak- enthusiastically applauded when they realized it was time ing paintings of Bread and Puppet rehearsals and to recognize the performers. performances, then toured with the company for Mr. Schumann was clearly pleased with his company several more years. and the show, but was uncertain whether it would be pre- sented up the road at Bread and Puppet’s farm on Route 122 in Glover.
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5('4I03*++I#&0$$$ 5('4J03*++I#&0$$$ CB =$>*23#$?("31# @-*"");$?A$ "#)#1(!$/-6&++(&+.($'&1#(.*'&+(3&)$/(;1*6()/#( !%.#(*;()/#(!)&7#(&!(*"/#'%&(%!('&%.()*(1#!)? ' ( !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", 3+! + * /& *5) 0 by Lawrence Switzky So Shakespeare dies and goes to heaven, which looks like a theatre. And Saint Peter, who resembles the great English Shakespeare director Peter Hall, is out in the audience. They both understand that this is an audition. But because Shakespeare is a puppet, he puts Those protean, improvising hands can’t help but recall the abyme, puppets become the operators of other puppets; the on a puppet show, all of his plays slimmed hands we don’t see between the frames, shaping, exploring, dummy in the Macbeth scene operates a witch puppet, but the to a single iconic moment of around ensouling a compact and artificial world. The spirit of witches are themselves puppetmasters. Kenneth Gross, who eight seconds (or 160 frames of film). He makeshift flows between the trunk on the puppet stage has surveyed the “puppet moments” in Shakespeare’s drama, performs his complete works with a dummy, and the puppeteers in a film studio in Bristol. In Richard notes how frequently the plays ask us to “reflect on just how some props and some stage magic. It works; III, puppet-Shakespeare uses a scuttling hand to enact the much the actors onstage, or the characters they play, control or Saint Peter is won over. He says, “What murderers who creep into the Tower of London to kill his are controlled by others, by manifest or unseen forces, invis- fools these mortals be.” Credits. nephews. In the production studio, according to the liner ible hands and strings.”3 This universal irony, one that applies Barry Purves’s 1989 stop-motion short, notes to His Intimate Lives, the DVD collection that contains to Shakespeare as much as to puppetry, does not allow us to Next, is a nearly wordless treatise on Next, Purves found two blown-up condoms to represent the forget how death will finally put a stop to the capacity to ani- puppetry and on Shakespeare’s theatre as princes.1 Puppet-Shakespeare conjures the two Dromios in mate or be animated in turn. The Shakespeare of Next musters twinned arts of lending animacy. It’s as The Comedy of Errors out of a clown’s nose and a mirror. In this wild spectacle as he exhausts his last puff of mortality. though at the instant of death, Shakespeare the spectacular final tableau from Cymbeline, Shakespeare But that’s also not quite the end. Even in the credits, after clings to two forms, compressed and descends from the sky, amid thunder and lightning, dressed Shakespeare has been saved and etherealized, Purves casts various, that endow objects and persons as an eagle in the middle of a sunburst. That elaborate setting members of the crew (“supporting company of assorted crafts- with life. (Film, the medium that reanimates was fashioned out of a clock Purves found in the trash on the men, bawds, spear carriers, and attendant fairies”) in roles they that animation, quietly presides as a third.) morning of the shoot. might play in other Shakespeare projects—Peter Quince in A Next advances a perverse argument for the In Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance, his Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mistress Overdone in Measure plays as artworks that survive and flourish witty and illuminating treatise on filmed puppetry, Purves for Measure—after they’ve cashed their meager checks and when they’ve been sheared of their glorious insists again and again on the importance of “Letting a gesture moved on to other gigs. At the beginning of his career as an language. These compressed Shakespeares read”: “The eye needs a few seconds to think about something independent filmmaker, Purves seizes on Shakespeare’s ex- remind us how much of the drama depends before it is ready for the next image.”2 But much of the rough ample to express a puppet artist’s credo: that created motion, on the inter-animation of persons and things, and that language is only one means of magic of Next comes from the sheer momentum with which even stop-motion, never really ceases. In Next, Purves gives distributing liveliness. The plays become a pageant of crowns exchanged, mirrors broken, one play, held only for one count in every eight, injects life the last word to Shakespeare; and perhaps it’s best to give cups of sack drunk, thrusting swords, yellow garters, masks, a ring, a handkerchief, a fake into the next. The onrushing continuity of motion (“Next”) the last word on this appreciation, too, to Shakespeare in his bear, a blanket that suggests a fairy lover and then the brook where Ophelia drowns. Even structures the film. The dummy Desdemona, strangled Sonnet 18: “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,/So Saint Peter has a bell that summons Shakespeare to action. in Othello, is dismembered and baked into a pie in Titus long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” Next was the first film that Purves wrote and directed by himself after a decade work- Andronicus, and then miraculously resurrected as one of the ing for Aardman Animation. Commissioned by Channel Four for their Lip Synch series, disappointed guests at the second banquet in Timon of Athens. LAWRENCE SWITZKY is Associate Professor of the brief was to compose a short piece about language. Purves, inspired by the challenge These casual transformations, these moments when people English and Drama at the University of Toronto. of the budget (which only allowed one complex puppet) and mime Nola Rae’s Handlet: become things that then become people again, this animistic His most recent publication is the collection Hamlet, a performance told with anthropomorphic hands in expressive gloves, chose to whirligig, evokes the sheer promiscuity with which agency Shakespeare’s Things: Shakespearean Theatre explore body language. He endows Shakespeare’s hands with unusual expressive power, circulates between human characters and the object world and the Non-Human World in History, Theory, little puppets on a larger puppet. Much Ado about Nothing is a heated palaver between in Shakespeare’s plays. In a characteristic Purves mise en and Performance. hands that stand for Beatrice and Benedick. Donning an elaborate headdress for Antony and Cleopatra, one of puppet-Shakespeare’s hands is made to serve as an asp that bites 1!Barry Purves: His Intimate Lives. Directed by Barry 3 Kenneth Gross, “Shakespeare’s Puppets” in Shakespeare’s him/her in the breast. Purves. Potemkine, 2008. Things: Shakespearean Theatre and the Non-Human World in History, Theory, and Performance, edited by Brett 2 Barry Purves, Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Gamboa and Lawrence Switzky (New York and London: Performance (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2008), 221. Routledge, 2020), 176. )* )) !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", ) (# & ",## * & #* + # (* & by Fred Curchack Of my 78 original performances, five were adaptations of Some modern interpretations make a case for The Shakespeare. I used many theatrical techniques, particularly Tempest’s colonialist theme wherein the indigenous islanders puppetry and mask, to perform Shakespeare’s transcendent Ariel and Caliban are enslaved by the imperialist Prospero. I language and also to confront the cultural assumptions and consider my work to be extremely political, but Shakespeare myths associated with the plays. writes on multiple levels and a merely political interpretation I frequently play with the original texts, giving the puppets misses some of the subtler ideas. free reign to make comments to each other, to the audience, Each character in the play yearns for freedom, but each or to me (the puppeteer/actor). At times the puppets speak one understands freedom differently. The slave Caliban asides in the voices of their characters, but they can also break screams, “Freedom! High day, freedom!” as he plans to kill character and speak as actors. I also alternate between playing his master. Ariel asks Prospero for, “My liberty.” Miranda Two examples of actions which reflect on some of the sexually violating the doll, who sits on a stool, I knock multiple Shakespearean roles and playing the role of the actor. tells Ferdinand, “I’ll be your servant whether you will or sexualized language in The Tempest: over the stool. My finger gets stuck in the doll’s crotch Stuff As Dreams Are Made On follows a solo performer’s no.” He responds that he’ll be her husband “with a heart as I sculpted Caliban, combining motifs from two Japa- and I violently try to shake it free, finally using the stool attempts to play all the roles in The Tempest. At the end of willing as bondage e’er of freedom.” In the play’s final line, nese Noh demon masks, Tengu (with a phallic nose) and to pry the doll loose. The outraged doll/actress screams, Shakespeare’s play, Prospero says, “I will retire me to my Prospero asks, “As you from crimes would pardoned be, let Hannya. In one scene, Caliban picks up the Miranda doll, “Exit Ferdinand!” I accidentally step on the cloth hanging Milan, where every third thought shall be my grave.” Having your indulgence set me free.” attempting to rape her. He knocks off her wig, revealing from the mask and my face is briefly revealed before I attained a depth of awareness, Prospero can renounce his Touring in countries with authoritarian governments, I her almost bald scalp. The doll/actress screams, “Get my cover it with my hand. I say a pathetic little, “Sorry” and “rough magic” and prepare for death. observed that most people saw my adaptation as a political wig, you savage deformed nincompoop.” The boundary exit behind the scrim. Audiences worldwide have howled with laughter at this scene. The doll actress/Miranda inter- On one level, the characters in the play can be understood statement. Although questions of political freedom, social between the characters and the actors/puppets becomes rupts their laughter screaming, “Do you find that funny? as embodying various aspects of a human being. Caliban, who justice, gender equality are there, my deepest concern, confused. The attempted rape scene resumes but is again Do you find something artistically justifiable about that?!” is concerned with food and sex, could be seen as the body, often unnoticed, is inner freedom. When Prospero says of subverted by me looking up at the appalled audience and telling them, “It’s a valid interpretation.” Still wearing This usually leads to more laughter, hopefully making Miranda: emotion, Ariel: spirit. Prospero is the rightful ruler, a Caliban, “this thing of darkness, I acknowledge mine,” we the Caliban mask, I attempt to justify myself using aca- them reflect on their complicity in the abuse. real “I,” who could create a harmonious relationship between are reminded that this shadow aspect is part of our psyche. demic jargon: “I’m trying to create a dialectic to infuse A 1950s doll plays the role of Miranda. I sculpted If we aspire to freedom for all, we need to liberate ourselves these aspects, but is living in exile while a false Duke sits on the image with a kind of self-referential, anagogically masks for Ariel, and Caliban, and for the magician Pros- the throne. The false ruler is one’s own artificially constructed from the tyranny of our own unconsciousness. inflected taxonomy of performance icons which in its pero, I made a white latex “death mask” of my face. I personality, which obscures inner life. “Persona” means The core action in Stuff follows an actor who is imprisoned self-reflexive hermeneutic, deconstructs the postmodern, see these masks as the various aspects of a human being, “mask” and I use masks and puppets as symbols of our divided by acting, enslaved by all his roles/masks/puppets. He is not metaphrastic metaphoresis … I’m not sexist!” sometimes co-existing harmoniously, often in conflict. selves, noumena/phenomena, individuality/personality. capable of acting with consciousness or conscience. It is the I play Ferdinand wearing There are influences Some consider The Tempest to be Shakespeare’s “farewell story of our everyday lives. Performing this struggle is part a small mustachioed doll from Balinese topeng to the theatre.” As his last major work, it is a distillation of of my work on myself. head/mask on my forehead. masked performance and central concerns. In addition to playing Shakespeare’s characters, I also The romantic encounter of wayang kulit shadow Why does Prospero renounce his “rough magic”? Actors play myself, an actor named “Fred.” One strategy of the Miranda and Ferdinand is puppet show. In the solo are challenged to see and give up their “tics” and “tricks”. play is to interrupt Shakespeare’s text with dialogue between subverted as their kissing form of topeng, as in my In various awareness practices, one observes one’s habitual the actor and puppets and with the audience. Some of the leads to him sticking his show, the masked dancer/ reactions. The “tricks” in my play are not only the “stuff” scenes use shocking imagery to jolt the spectators out of their hand up her dress. While of theatrical craft but also the “stuff of dreams,” the stuff of passivity and to provoke questions, not solely “Brechtian” unconscious tendencies and the play of consciousness. political confrontations, but also questions about inner life. "/*)*!<(&'%!&(#50%'%! )! )" !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", The scene where the two couples This gender-bender, while refer- boy, and these are my toys, and now it’s fight in the woods leads to the puppets encing women’s roles being played by time for me to put them to bed.” arguing about whether Shakespeare or Elizabethan male actors, engenders a A puppet lacks consciousness and others actually wrote the lines that they confrontation with notions of sexual conscience. It is controlled by a puppe- are speaking. Hermia insists, that the identity and violence against women. teer. Are we mere puppets? Psychology, “only man who could have written this Audiences howl with laughter at this philosophy and religion debate whether arch-ironic radical feminist perspective scene, although the comic representa- we have free will, agency, or are we on the re-patriarchalization of society tion of rape creates a cruel dialectic in subject to forces beyond ourselves: Toward the end of the was a woman: the Virgin Queen.” This which the spectators’ hilarity makes deities, devils, spirits, planets, genes, show, I speak Shakespeare’s leads to a violent Punch and Judy fracas them complicit. acculturation, socialization, education, “We are such stuff as dreams in which the dummies try to rape Helena The dummies violently attack the destiny, kismet, karma, fate? Is it pos- actor enters and exits from behind a The dark, psycho-sexual side are made on” monologue (me wearing a doll’s head/mask). In the unmasked man while he pleads for his sible for the puppet to awaken? Can we curtain and performs various roles. of Shakespeare’s comedy has been while removing four layers of struggle, the mask falls off and the dum- life. His screaming transforms into a shed our masks and liberate ourselves Royal characters speak in classical depicted in many modern productions. latex masks, finally attempting mies are shocked to see my face revealed primal birth cry, then silence, and he from our puppet-ness? Shakespeare Balinese, while clowns speak in The Greek hero/rapist Theseus has to remove my bare face. My and they realize that, “It’s a man!” soberly realizes, “I’m the changeling offers rare insights into this challenge. contemporary language and improvise association for this unmasking subdued Hippolyta, Queen of the with the audience. As in The Tempest is the discarding of layers of Amazons, in battle and is now preparing FRED CURCHACK teaches at the and also my adaptation, contemplation identification and illusion that to marry her. I wear a mustached doll’s University of Texas at Dallas. of esoteric philosophy and the sacred will inevitably cling at the head mask on my forehead to play is woven together with political time of death, attachments Theseus. Hippolyta is portrayed by a !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"#!$%!&'()*!+,-.!$%!/$01.2!34,5!6748198: commentary and profane jokes. which also are obstructions doll’s head mounted on a small broom. In wayang kulit, the dalang puppet- to the wish to awaken in any Under a bridal veil, her face is black ;)!.1,$4!<9.,%.!#'589%.*!=')9<$%9!>?$594!9)5!@4$9)!A$<%')!819.!($.1!.1,!.1,9.,4?9:,4!9B'7.!1$%!'),C?9)!%1'(D master speaks in different voices and and blue from domestic abuse. Theseus moment of everyday life. www.theaterjones.com/ntx/features/20200117165812/2020-01-17/Up-is-Down-Left-is-Right-Fred-Curchack operates each puppet. The shadows Ten years after creating says, “I wooed thee with my sword and include characters from scripture/ Stuff…, I made What Fools won thy love doing thee injury...” while mythology, and also clowns who These Mortals Be, using texts repeatedly thrusting his sword through comment on the action. I use my own from A Midsummer Night’s the broom, and then dog-humping the body as a puppet, holding a flashlight to Dream. I was in the midst of broomstick. On the line “… but I will project the shadows. The shadows are an anguished dissolution of a wed thee in another key …” Theseus, windows into the subconscious, evoking 16-year marriage. I thought magician-like, sticks his sword through ancient rituals like the Eleusinian that Midsummer… would be the head of the doll while the Titania/ Mysteries which are said to have a powerful mirror to reflect actress says, “God, I hate this scene.” informed Plato’s idea of the shadows upon my personal myths, When Hermia runs away with her that we mistake for reality. Spectators’ expectations, and infantile love, Lysander, they get lost in the brains are taxed with translating three- illusions about love. woods. In Shakespeare’s comic banter dimensional body movements into My earliest childhood about whether he can “lie” with her, the two-dimensional shadow images, experience of performing dummy Lysander tries to date rape her while trying to interpret the images’ was giving puppet shows in but she knocks him down and yells in relationship to the text. I hope this opens the garage. For the play, I her thick NY accent, “You ain’t getting up complex and deepening levels of found replicas of the Howdy nothin’ till I got that little ring on my perception. Doody and Jerry Mahoney finger!” When Prospero says, “gentle breath ventriloquist dummies that I In a donkey mask, I operate the of yours, my sails must fill, unless had when I was little. These Titania puppet. She says, “Bind up my my project fails,” for me the “sail” is dummies were TV superstars lover’s tongue, bring him silently.” Here the white curtain on which I project in the 50s. The image of a solo the repeated motif of males subduing shadows. The curtain is the tabula rasa actor playing with toys seemed and silencing females is inverted, while of pure awareness, consciousness, the a good vehicle for exploring a new twist is given to the phrase, “Go nature of mind itself. Shakespeare’s vision of the screw yourself.” childish, narcissistic beliefs and expectations that we foolish mortals bring to relationship and marriage. )# )$ !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", & * & * &#& ** ) (# & ’( * Karagöz and Hamlet, the defining cultural hallmarks of two diametrically opposed traditions, come together on the same stage in this new play, thanks written, directed and performed to the creative storytelling and boundless by Ayhan Hülagü imagination of Ayhan Hülagü, a promis- ing young artist living in the U.S. All the characters in the play have The show’s thesis is as unlikely as it is rife with comic pos- been re-designed as two-dimensional sibility. After moving to America and settling down there, puppets. As in the traditional shadow Karagöz sets up a theatre with a close friend and decides theatre, the figures representing characters are made of the leather of to stage Shakespeare’s immortal piece of work. When the camel and water buffalo. They are adapted into the play after being characters of Hamlet are reincarnated in different costumes painted with special tools. While presenting a modern story, Dream and shapes in the style of a Karagöz performance, hilarity of Hamlet uses all the subtleties of traditional art. What distinguishes ensues: a colorful and robust piece of experimental theatre this special occasion is the fact that the entire play is performed by a "/*)*<(01%!)*"/#1(=*/+!*+ full of laughter, quick-witted humor and irony. In this lively single artist. With over 30 puppets in the show, this is no small feat! show, the Anatolian puppet theatre Karagöz, a living tradi- tion with 700 years of history, brings a modernist approach to AYHAN HÜLAGÜ is a journalist, actor and puppet master, having Shakespeare’s signature play by re-imagining its characters studied with one of Turkey’s last living Karagöz masters. Since and theme in an entirely different context. moving to the US, he founded the Karagöz Theater Company in Washington, DC. )% )& !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !) (# & by Manuel Antonio Morán, Ph.D. 1$'23'4)$')56&#%$7*$%6W$'$52'4$94$:6226'($-"';#)5#'&#<$ The first play I saw by the renowned Englishman was I chose A Midsummer Night’s Dream–a fantasy that King Lear, and I was very impressed with the the actor includes a variety of characters and a plurality of fantastic who played the old king. I also vividly remember the worlds: humans (humble artisans and aristocrats), fair- stage design: many levels created with platforms and on ies, beings from pagan mythology and animals–the same them, a gigantic map. After that, I gave myself the task sort of characters as those used in Children’s Theater. of getting to know Shakespeare, reading and seeing all My concept was to bring to the production all the ele- the works I could. I especially remember productions ments that define my work: Latino culture, puppets and at the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan; a produc- original music converging with different spatial and stage tion of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by ISA students elements. I also wanted to experiment with other scenic in Havana, Cuba; by the Public Theater in the open-air resources I rarely use, such as dance theater and modern Delacorte Theater in Central Park, New York; and dance. I wanted to tell the already-famous story in a dif- even the modern and classic productions of the Royal ferent way, in the form of a celebration–a party. This is "/*)*!<(7#*17#(1%2#1*+ Shakespeare Company in London and Stratford-upon- how I decided to set it in a carnival atmosphere in the Avon. All of these theatrical experiences nurtured that Caribbean, and more specifically, adapting the piece to original desire, and I was certain I would direct a play an Afro-Caribbean environment. I decided to “Latinize” by Shakespeare. the Englishman William Shakespeare as “Guillermo.” !"#$%&#'()$*+$,-.#/*0 OBERON: Well, go thy way. Thou shalt not My career, my artistic work and that of my company, I recruited a creative team that reflected and un- The story would take place in a tropical forest, on from this grove Teatro SEA (www.teatrosea.org) has been characterized derstood this cultural reality. Productions dealing with a Caribbean island. I wanted that universe to be Till I torment thee of this injury. as being dedicated to theater for children, youth, family, a specific culture or ethnicity are regularly staged by completely white–scenery, the props, costumes– Latino and bilingual audiences. We produce, mostly, creative teams that do not include people from the cul- everything as white as snow. The only exception would My gentle Puck, come hither. musical theater with a combination of actors and all tures represented. This is how monumental mistakes end be the actors-puppeteers-dancers and the puppets, who Fetch me that flow’r; the herb I showed kinds of puppets. Our mission is to promote develop- up in the production and design, often promoting the would be mulatto or Black, representing the Afro- thee once: ment and self-esteem in children, and to disseminate, stereotypes and prejudices that cause so much damage. descent of the region. The final production had over strengthen and preserve Latino culture through theater. Norge Espinosa–poet, theater critic and one of Cuba’s 65 puppets, masks, big-heads, “vejigantes” and body The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid This is why we perform in two languages (English and great contemporary playwrights–would adapt the text. I puppets combined with actors, modern dancers and Will make a man or woman madly dote Spanish) and showcase original works and adaptations recruited two extraordinary composers: Alejandro Zuleta live music. Together they represented the story and of “Latinized” classic stories. What is a “Latinized” (Colombia) and Dr. Manuel Calzada (Puerto Rico), both additional dreams set in a Caribbean and Latin magical Upon the next live creature that it sees. classic story? The answer is simple: We take a classic with extensive knowledge of Afro-Caribbean and sym- realism environment. Fetch me this herb. text (usually very well-known) and add cultural ele- phonic-classical rhythms, the combination I envisioned I would like to illustrate an example of the dreams ments of different Latin American idiosyncrasies. In for this production. I invited Daniel Fetecua (Colombia), represented in our play: this one reinterpreted for PUCK: I’ll put a girdle round about the earth our repertoire, you may find a Cinderella who loves to choreographer and member of the world famous José our specific adaptation. In the original piece, Oberon tango or a Pinocchio (Pino Nacho) who is a Mexican Limón Dance Company. My great collaborator for years, sends Puck to look for a magical flower, to bewitch forty in forty minutes. [Puck exits] immigrant. José López (Puerto Rico), would be puppet and stage the lovers. I decided I would celebrate the thirtieth anniversary designer, and Ingrid Hamster-Harris (Dutch-Canadian) of my company with a play by Shakespeare. would design the costumes of both actors and puppets. )' )( !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", In our version, Puck is going to look for the auspicious while the puppeteer-dancers would animate the puppets, in- We included masks of animals, divine beings and fairies, flower at the bottom of the sea, among mermaids and marine terpreting the story via movement and dance. The result was designed in the tradition of “vejigantes,” (Puerto Rico) or animals. In this scene, in addition to Puck (a human-sized a highly talented, inclusive and diverse cast–26 people: 2 “diablos cojuelos,” (Dominican Republic). These hail from puppet attached to the puppeteer’s body and animated with actor-readers, 8 puppeteer-dancers, 2 stilt walkers, 2 singers a Spanish tradition dating back to the 17th century–demons head and arm rods), seven other rod puppets join him, ranging and 12 musicians representing eleven Latin American coun- used in processions for the purpose of terrorizing people from 2’to 5’ puppets: schools of fish, a manatee, an octopus, a tries, Ibero-Americans and African-Americans. Likewise, the into returning to Church. In the Caribbean, this tradition was swordfish and a shark, the magic flower and a mermaid. They creative and production team consisted of a diverse staff. This influenced by Taíno, African and Creole customs. Since the all move to the rhythm of a sweet, playful and dreamy melody, contributed an abundance of creative wealth and exchange of original Shakespeare story includes animals, gods and fairies in a choreography where Puck swims among the marine ideas to the process. living among humans, these Caribbean carnival beings could animals and plays with the mermaid, until he manages to get enrich the stage with their movement and dance. the flower she carries and even gets a tender and magical kiss !"#$5.55#7)$*+$,-.#/*0 Even the hand or glove puppet tradition is integrated into from her. The kiss is the catalyst for a change in rhythm into As I said, this production had 65 puppets. The human the play. “Títere de cachiporra” is the popular name in Spain Bomba music, the first autochthonous music of Puerto Rico, characters were mostly depicted with rod puppets of various for glove puppets. In the fun scenes with the “mechanicals,” created in the sugar plantations by slaves more than 400 years sizes, ranging from 1’6” to 5’ tall. There were two versions where Bottom is the main character, I decided to alter the ago. The scene is transformed into an explosive and sensual for each of the four lovers, a human-sized puppet and a small scene order and open the show on a tableau with glove dance, with movements that almost lead to trance, anticipating puppet. We also included puppets used during the Caribbean puppets. The tableau, supported by two stilt walkers, arrives the confusing moments that lie ahead in this comedy of errors, carnivals, giant body puppets 18’ high and “big-heads.” in a parade of actors, dancers and musicians.: Lucrecia Novoa where in the end, love triumphs. Oberon and Titania, our protagonist gods, are represented in (Chile), Chris Williams (USA), Keith Sarri (USA), Daisy several ways, each with its own big-head and another giant Payero (Dominican Republic), Edward Cardenales and Luis !"#$8')7 puppet version. Giants and big heads are a popular tradition Villafañe, both from Puerto Rico. To represent A Midsummer Night’s Dream, you need to have celebrated in many festivals in Spain and Latin America. The a vast cast. In our production, the characters would be pup- big heads are commonly called “cabets” around Valencia, ='7#&6'2)>$)7*&()$'?%$)"653) pets, reducing the number of actors required. However, my “muñecones” in Cuba. The original idea to create this “army” of puppets, of many Within a few months, the production was selected to be concept was to create a visual spectacle where, through dance, López designed Oberon after Spain’s “gigantones” or sizes and styles, was to use regular corrugated cardboard. part of the 51st International Theater Festival of Puerto Rico. music and puppets, the Shakespearean text would come to giants: rigid and tall, worked much of the time by a single Many mistakenly think that the Caribbean is a simple and The festival was going to be dedicated to the celebration of life: a Latino life. Then there was the challenge of finding puppeteer. Titania, on the other hand, is a giant puppet with poor region or ethnic group, however, it accomplishes much our company’s 30th anniversary and would pay tribute to my mulatto or Afro-Latino actors-puppeteers-dancers who were many articulations in arms, torso, head and legs, requiring six and expresses itself culturally achieving the extraordinary, career. We traveled from New York and were fortunate to also bilingual. That’s when I decided to rethink the produc- puppeteers. The limbs entered as independent objects, joining the sublime. That analogy made a lot of sense to me and was have actors from the Island and the Puerto Rico Philharmonic tion. The result of my reflection: two actor-readers would to form, right in front of the spectators, a giant naked Titania, part of what I wanted to express. We also chose corrugated Orchestra join us. Thousands of spectators accompanied us in interpret the voices of the almost 30 characters in the story, eliciting applause and a chorus of “Bravo!” cardboard because we wanted the puppets to be light and tex- the three shows (offered free of charge). tured. But the pieces could not be made of fragile materials, On our return to New York, the shipping company lost due to the possibility of inclement weather during a show. We two of the five giant boxes transporting the production. decided to give the cardboard pieces a liquid plastic bath, a Unfortunately, these boxes contained 65% of the puppets. Lost, technique we had not used before, but that would help make nobody knows where. I prefer to think that, as they came by the cardboard more durable. However, we realized that not boat, my puppets are celebrating a similar carnival somewhere all pieces would be achieved because of time and budget con- in those beautiful waters. straints. We decided then to use foam rubber, a material José Three years later, on the premiere of our inaugural edition dominates almost perfectly and manages quite quickly. The of the International Puppet Fringe Festival of New York, we final product had its own specific beauty and was applauded, took Sueño to the stage once again with puppets of cardboard but it was not what I had visualized; I was never satisfied with and liquid plastic, as originally conceived. This time, I was the final result. very pleased. !"#$5&#)#?7'76*?) The piece premiered with great success in the summer of MANUEL ANTONIO MORÁN-MARTÍNEZ 2015, outdoors, in the parking lot where SEA Theatre, is (San Juan, Puerto Rico), former President of UNIMA- located in Lower Manhattan. Thousands of people attended USA, is currently Vice-President of UNIMA (Union and the reviews were highly favorable. The production won Internationale de la Marionnette), where he also 14 awards from the Asociación de Cronistas de Espectáculos chairs the Three Americas Commission. More than (ACE), the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA) 35 years ago, Morán founded SEA, Society of the and the Asociación de Artistas Independientes (ATI). Educational Arts, Inc. www.teatrosea.org !* !) !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", Ms. Fijan and I worked on well-known speeches and short or eliminate words or phrases to suit our needs but also to keep the scenes rather than attempting one entire single play edited to fit iambic pentameter correct and, of course, Shakespeare’s own mean- " & & ) (# & ( ",## * + * & our performance needs. Our final production lasted about one and ing as true to form as possible. by Paul Vincent Davis a half hours including a fifteen-minute intermission. We planned to l have also, and often, wished we had not made the puppet figures perform shorter versions for high school assembly programs–offer- as physically realistic as they were. Our production was a fine and Performing works by Shakespeare, or other still in the classic tradition to have the actors and actresses perform variety acts ing scenes or pieces selected from Shakespeare that would work in enriching modern puppet performance using Shakespeare’s poetry classic playwrights of former times, is a before the plays began. These variety acts were eliminated during the Victorian all situations–and our longer program, selected for adult audiences. for the script, and puppets in a more modern design would have frequent and strong desire and an amazing age and Shakespeare was often rewritten to eliminate what they felt was cruel. Among other discoveries was that Ms. Fijan and I each had suited my taste rather than our more realistic Elizabethan characters. challenge to skilled puppet theater producers Romeo and Juliet did not die in rewritten 17th and 18th Century variations of some surprising and unnoticed vocal problems. In a tape recording Great puppet theater for adults is much needed in these United and performers. Shakespeare’s plays were written Romeo and Juliet. of the two of us reading Shakespeare, we realized that Carol Fijan States, and inventive puppet performances of works by the Old to be performed by well-trained and professional Many theater companies today, performing Shakespeare, especially the had a strong New York twang, and I still had a slight but definite Master playwrights offers a wonderful potential for attracting adult actors. Even the young boys playing the women’s comedies, may still offer variety acts prior to the production. Because these acts Southern drawl in my vocal work. While our emotional acting was audiences to puppet theater. roles were superbly trained. are theatrical, they must appeal to contemporary audiences and might “suggest” well accomplished, our vocal techniques did not jibe with perform- I strongly believe that those who wish to perform the works of The prologue to Shakespeare’s tragedy Henry antiquity, but are often done to entertain contemporary audiences, rather then to ing Shakespeare. Shakespeare (or other great writers for theater) remember that they VIII begins with the opening line: “I come no more be an imitation of times long past. What one decides to present is now a more Since both Ms. Fijan and I wanted to do our best in the perfor- are creating a fantastic performance of Puppet Theater using the to make you laugh.” The line suggests that the Pro- personal choice. mance, our own local accents would be out of place. We also had works of those great writers, rather than doing Shakespeare, using logue speaker has been on stage doing something A solo performance by an English puppeteer who once appeared at the Pup- no intention of using a faked and phony English accent. We studied puppets instead of human actors. Fine puppet productions performing humorous prior to the beginning of the play, but that pet Showplace Theater, used shadow puppets with a carefully edited and well- what is known in theater and film as “American Theater English,” classical theater is never easy, but can be magnificent when well done. is not included or even mentioned in the script. It is performed version of “Henry V.” Not only was the acting and puppetry extremely trained with professional voice teachers and learned to change our a seemingly out of place line to our more modern well done, it was also inventive in using shadows that allowed for many special accents to a better form of correct American English in our acting ears. The actors, in Shakespeare’s time, did perform effects behind the action to enhance the play visually. and speech techniques. songs, dances or other variety and comic pieces to In the final battle scene, the puppeteer, using an overhead projector, dropped When we first began working on vocal enhancement, and to keep entertain the public as the audience came into the a bit of red dye into a pan of water. Projected on the screen behind the shadow it constant and consistent we decided to speak, even in idle conver- theater waiting for the play to begin and waiting for figures, that bit of red coloring spreading out on the shadow screen, symbolized sation, in the new vocal technique. Many people and friends said the late arrival of the nobility to take their places in the spilling of blood in the ferocious battle, wonderfully enhancing the sense of we sounded phony and pretentious. After much study and constant the more central seating with the best view. In later a battle with much loss of life. practice, we were later told that we were both “very well spoken”– times, when women were included as actors, it was Shakespeare’s plays have been done as ballet with no words to tell the story, just right for performing works of Shakespeare in North America. but with magnificent dancers performing and expressing the emotions of the scene By then we were deeply ensconced in our working for the per- through designed and practiced movement. fection we wanted in all of our performances. This new speaking His plays have been performed as Operas for singers to display their fine technique improved the way we spoke in public, in private and vocal talents. Where Shakespeare’s lines and meter are not appropriate for Op- invigorated the acting and performances in our on-going puppet eratic musical language, the plays are changed to fit the art form in which they theater for young audiences. are performed. We also focused to improve our puppet manipulation and other When Carol Fijan and I were discussing our early thoughts of doing Shake- puppet theater needs, as well as Shakespearean meanings and intents. speare with puppets, as a National Theater of Puppetry Arts production, there was Our acting skills were greatly enriched by all of this new and studied much talk, argument, creative, controversial and inventive thinking. We debated vocal work. Our entire production required only two performers, but whether or not to create a series of short scenes, monologues and dramatic pieces we had neither time, energy, nor desire for any distractions such as rather than one full-length play or an edited and shortened version of a single play. turning on and off tape recorded music or sound effects (much in use We decided on performing various brief scenes to contemporary American in those older days), locating hand props or doing special lighting audiences. We strongly felt that our production was, in its own way, a variety effects. We selected a young student of puppetry to work with us in show of comedy and drama, and that adding variety acts of song and dance on those areas to prevent our being distracted from our performances. top of that would be far too much. Our production included a very short Prologue culled and heav- Among the pieces performed were: Lady Macbeth’s Sleepwalking scene, ily edited from the “Henry V” play. I personally felt that the brief comic scenes from Taming of the Shrew, Richard III’s opening monologue and introduction was not the right one, but, in our frantic deadlines of the scene of Richard’s marriage proposal to Lady Anne the day after he killed finishing the production on schedule, we settled on that one. It was her husband and her Father-in-Law in the War of the Roses. not terrible, but, in my personal opinion, an imperfect opening for PAUL VINCENT DAVIS is the Artist in Residence There is no right or wrong way to do fine puppet theater, whether abstracted the whole production. (Emeritus) of the Puppet Showplace Theater. His from Shakespeare or any other of those grand old works by the masters. They We used hand puppets for most comic scenes with hand-and-rod work has inspired many puppeteers and has received must be performed using puppets with skill and wise intent in presenting the puppets for the more dramatic scenes. Strong Puppet Theater was numerous UNIMA Citations for excellence in the art of works as the wonderful art that they are–not by “imitating” human actors but by our goal, and there were many places when dialogue “adjusting” puppetry. He is the recent author of Exploring the Art recreating them for the artistry of puppet theater. and script “editing” had to happen. We worked hard to both change of the Puppet Theater (Charlemagne Press). !! !" !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !# !$ !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", -( ",## *( * 5 #*& by Davis Robinson with Libby Marcus In 2004, I was invited to direct a production of Shakespeare’s and subplots, the action of the play depends heavily on Antony and Cleopatra for The Shakespeare Theater at strong acting from Antony, Cleopatra, Enobarbus, and to Monmouth (now known as The Theater at Monmouth), a a lesser extent, Caesar. theater in rural Maine. Originally I had not considered puppetry as a staging The small, summer stock company is a mix of Equity possibility. Then, while reading Enobarbus’ monologue professionals, local non-union actors, and acting interns with describing Antony’s first meeting with Cleopatra on her varying degrees of skill who are cast in all four shows at the barge pulled by a purple sail, the image leapt out at me as same time and often double or triple up on roles. The season is ideal for doing as a shadow play. performed on a small stage at the beautiful, eclectic Cumston After consulting with puppet designer and maker Libby Hall, which also houses the administrative offices and library Marcus, it made sense to integrate rod and shadow puppets for the town of Monmouth. The theater operates on a repertory throughout the production, borrowing (very loosely) from schedule, doing a different show almost every night once the the traditional Indonesian rod and shadow puppet forms, summer season gets underway. wayang golek and wayang kulit, because the epic sweep Once audiences knew a character as puppet characters and ancient Balinese of the Antony and Cleopatra echoes the sprawling nature a puppet or silhouette, different actors shadow puppets dance behind screens. of the Hindu myths for which the wayang golek and kulit could operate it and keep the storyline Robinson enhances a bare stage with a puppets are used. A Balinese-style shadow screen would going while other actors transitioned or huge background screen, behind which serve as a central scenic element. did costume changes. The move between actors voice-over the handheld characters. Puppetry could help to clarify the story, create a rich real-life action and shadow play on the The result is magical and enchanting…Not visual landscape, and aid the small acting company in screen kept the audience’s eyes engaged enough can be said of the puppetry of Abi playing several roles by putting the focus on the character and gave them a different way of hearing Van Andel. It is enchanting and delightful archetypes and less emphasis on individual actor choices. the language, freed from the focus on work. She has clearly studied her art. Libby Puppetry was a way of making what some would consider the actor in front of them. It kept the Marcus’s designs are flawless.” one of Shakespeare’s more tedious history plays into a story moving briskly. Baroque battle compelling evening of visually poetic, romantic tragedy. descriptions became easier to understand DAVIS ROBINSON is founder and The producers liked the idea, and we went through the when the imagery was illustrated in artistic director of the Beau Jest script deciding what roles would be live actors, what roles real-time on a shadow screen. And the Moving Theater, and professor were rod puppets, and what roles or scenes were played in scenes that integrated the puppet world of theater at Bowdoin College in silhouette. This led to a kind of hierarchy where the lowest with human actors further enhanced Brunswick, Maine. He is author of servants, those who were beaten by the Queen, were rod the subliminal sense that Antony and The Physical Comedy Handbook puppets. The Soothsayer was a large shadow figure. And Cleopatra were larger-than-life, mythic and A Practical Guide To Ensemble most of the battle scenes were staged on the shadow screen personalities who inhabited a world of Devising. He studied in Paris with upstage with live actors speaking offstage or in the two their own desires. Jacques Lecoq and in the United onstage opera boxes that are part of the design of the theater. The local paper, The Morning Sentinel, States with Tony Montanaro at the The result was that the audience had a clear and visceral reviewed the production and said “ . . . the Celebration Barn Theater, where sense of identification with the main story line as Mark company was victorious, and the workings he teaches ensemble devising, Since the company’s founding in 1970, many of Cartier and Janis Stevens, the two excellent actors who of it clever and fascinating…What sets improvisation, and physical comedy, Shakespeare’s more popular plays have been staged several played Antony and Cleopatra, were surrounded by a world this dramatically apart from previous every summer. times, but Antony and Cleopatra has rarely been produced. of small-scale puppets. Shadowy oracles and distant battles A & C’s I have suffered through is the When I was asked to direct it, I read it through and could see played on the horizon while their love story stayed in interesting and unusual staging. Robinson LIBBY MARCUS earned her MFA why it was problematic for a summer’s night of entertainment real-world focus at all times. I remember the actress Janis employs the traditional bare staging of from Goddard College and also on a tiny stage. It is one of Shakespeare’s longest plays. It has looking at me doubtfully when we began rehearsals saying, Shakespeare’s time and adds a dashing studied at the Institute of Professional a large, confusing array of characters. There are several battle “So you want me to say that to a puppet while strangling touch of Japanese Bunraku puppet theater, Puppetry Arts (IPPA) at the Eugene scenes, some just described, some staged. Locations jump him?” But soon everyone got on board with the idea, where actors arrive on stage holding O’Neill Theater Center. from place to place quickly, and the story is hard to follow. and actors loved the flexibility of being able to do quick And while there are a number of servants, guards, soldiers, transitions and play multiple parts. !% !& !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", 6&$4#)/(;1*6()/#('%))'#(&+7#'()/#&)1#(ABCEFD ,&* ) (# & ",## *( essentially Bali, with gamelan music A new exhibit at BIMP runs through June 7 playing an important role. The puppets in Curchack’s production are modified Western dolls and store-bought puppets, I began to have an interest in William Shakespeare and Some might think that the pairing of the world’s most but his training in Japanese Noh, Indian puppetry in 2004 when I assisted Lyndie Wright as a puppet important literary giant’s work with an art form wrongly Kathakali, and Indonesian Topeng maker for a production of Shakespeare’s narrative poem considered to be lowly and marginalized is not appropriate, mask performance comes through in Venus and Adonis, co-produced by the Little Angel Theatre even comical. The Shakespeare and Puppetry exhibition his performance style and movement. (LAT) and the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). Gregory is intended to demonstrate how they can work together in The exhibition is not exhaustive. Doran, who is now RSC’s artistic director, saw a Bunraku synergy. It is well known that Shakespeare’s plays lend For various reasons, we were unable performance in Osaka and approached LAT to create a puppet themselves well to a wide variety of interpretations and to include the inspiring Shakespeare installment are things from workshop plays of Handspring Puppet Company, show of Shakespeare’s erotic poem. Before working on this settings and accommodate diverse aesthetic strategies and shelves such as glue bottles, spray paint show, I understood puppetry as a visual theatre medium. I was political messages. Puppets are able not only to take on the Neville Tranter, and many others. But canisters, nails, and a faucet. Macbeth in presenting non-human actors of skeptical about puppets taking roles in performances in which literary giant but also give his texts unique possibilities for is a half-filled, boiled linseed oil bottle literature is the main focus. Since then I have sought out and expression that only non-human actors are capable of bearing. Shakespeare, the exhibit aims to reveal and Lady Macbeth is a jar covered with metaphorical substrates of the plays witnessed great puppetized Shakespeare plays, undertaken In curating this exhibition I exclusively selected shows gray paint. Puppets can bring humor research in archives and collections in the US and Europe, that have puppets or objects in main roles. There have been and cast new light on Elizabethan to the dark Scottish play as when Tiny dramatic characters and situations. edited a special issue of Puppet Notebook (the organ of countless productions of Shakespeare and other canonical Ninja Theatre casts gumball machine British UNIMA) on Shakespeare and Puppetry, and curated playwrights in which puppets are used for solutions of the This exhibition celebrates objects as ninja figures Mr. Smile and Mrs. Smile legitimate actors for dramatic literature the exhibition with the same title at the Ballard Institute and roles that are tricky to cast, such as animals and children. in the roles of the Macbeths in a 2000 Museum of Puppetry (February 29 to June 7, 2020). Puppets are also often cast as supernatural beings because they A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The and the capacities of Shakespeare’s production, or when puppet director Tempest are plays that often use puppets plays as frameworks for exploring have a magical edge over human actors. However there have Jon Ludwig transfers the action of the been numerous puppet artists who see the capacity of puppets for the roles of non-human characters relations among people, things, and play to a wrestling ring in his Wrestling and the child known only as the Indian the world. to take on more meaty dramatic roles. The exhibit assembles Macbeth (2000). a wide variety of puppets and objects. Visitors encounter boy. In Larry Reed’s shadow play, A –by Jungmin Song Hamlet, Shakespeare’s best-known (Balinese) Tempest (2005) and Fred things that act Shakespeare in different forms, aesthetics, and play, has also often been tackled by scales in order to celebrate the diversity of modes in which Curchack’s What Fools These Mortals JUNGMIN SONG is a performance puppet artists—its psychological themes Be: Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s artist and researcher who edited a Shakespeare has been embodied. and interior drama are gauntlets thrown In the course of my research, I found that Macbeth is Dream Re-Visioned (1992), puppets special issue of “Puppet Notebook” down to challenge the capacities of play more complex roles, mediating on Shakespeare. She has taught in one of the most popular of Shakespeare’s texts selected by puppet artists. The exhibit includes a modern and contemporary puppet artists. The exhibition human and non-human realms. Both the fields of theater and fine arts 1990s reworking of George Speaight’s artists have clear Asian influences. at the University of Roehampton, presents five pairs of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Three toy theater rendition of Laurence of these are British productions. The oldest is the work of Balinese shadow puppetry colors Reed’s University of Connecticut, and the Olivier’s 1948 film Hamlet by Great Tempest: the play’s remote island is University of Kent. Hogarth Puppets, best known to the British public as the Small Works, interweaving the tragedy creators of the hit BBC children’s television show, Muffin the of the prince of Denmark with excerpts Mule (1946-1954). These puppets (from a 1959 production) from Olivier’s memoirs. Bread and are traditional marionettes in form, but with sculpted heads Puppet’s signature-style giant cardboard inspired by Cubism. Lyndie Wright created puppets for cut-out of Ophelia from Totally Out of )/#!#("-""#)!@(;1*6(&("1*.-$)%*+(*;( The Little Angel Theatre’s production of Macbeth (2013). Joint Hamlet (2018) is accompanied 2*0,#23'***4(&')/*-7/(+*)("&1)(*;()/#( All puppets in the show are anthropomorphized birds, with in the exhibition by hand puppet-size G!/&0#!"#&1#(&+.("-""#)!H(#I/%4%)@( &1#(%+(&+(&.=*%+%+7(1**6(&!("&1)(*;( Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as a rooster and hen. Since 2015, cardboard puppets and a puppet booth )/#(G!"#$%&'()*(+%,"&'-(&+.()/#( a major repertoire item for Forced Entertainment, a leading decorated with mousetraps. contemporary theatre company in the UK, has been a series &1)(*;("-""#)15H(#I/%4%)? -Editor ;1*6(-#01.!,@(45()%+5(+%+=&()/#&)1#(ABCCCD of 50-minute-long storytellings of 36 of Shakespeare’s plays, using household objects as actors, under the title Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare. The objects in the Macbeth "/*)*!<(&("#1%&'# !' !( !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#$"#%&'()*&"#&+"(,#-) by Claudia Orenstein and generously hosted. Nemo sees the event as an opportunity to promote local Vietnamese culture and offers participants unique local dishes and takes them to historical sights, temples, and picturesque parks. Accommodations range from truly basic (mats on the floor) to lodging at a traditional historic village, where one sleeps in a sumptuous wood-framed, net-canopied bed. While the touristy aspect of the festival is lovely, the !/&.*3("#1;*16&+$#(&1)%!)!(&)($&+&.&82%#)+&6(0%+.#17&1)#+((("/*)*<(&-)/*1 real value is the connection artists makes with each other and Vietnamese children. school level. The simple paper-plate puppet workshop thom performance was a rousing event, capitalizing on Along with myself and my Hunter College student Mari and I had prepared, (generously suggested to us the form’s strong dancing and puppet battles rather than Mari Rogers (who trained with her father in Robert Rog- by long-time UNIMA-USA member Carol Sterling), shadow projections. ers Puppet Company), our group included two artists from continually morphed with each new encounter as we At each location the school offered us delicious meals 3KDQ 7X͍Q4XͭF Thailand, Preechayut Chang, who goes by Art, and Dao adjusted it to the interests of each group. Thankfully, and gifts and attended to all our needs, setting up chairs, (above) who commonly goes by Nemo, Prakaidao Kantawong, two from Singapore, Terence Tan it proved to be surprisingly flexible. Younger kids hooking up microphones, organizing building materials. with his emblematic long black pony tail and thin build, and his wife, of Australian background, Jodi Thiele, three used their puppet mouths to eat each other or sing the Taking group photos with the teachers and the children in T-shirt and jeans, projects an unassuming presence. But young men from Cambodia, Bun Heng Soth, Sum Sothy, was an essential part of every stop. These schools were don’t be fooled. He is a Vietnamese puppetry maverick, and Mao Kim Orn, specializing in traditional sbek thom joyful spaces, each with its own style and ethos. One had continually dreaming up new schemes to make puppetry shadow puppetry, and, ⋤ abc㓽᳃ Wang Chaosen (aka Ah an organic garden that provided food for school lunches, a central player in contemporary Vietnamese life. I am Sen), a master of Chinese shadow puppetry, and his as- another had rocks, shells, branches, and other natural not talking here about the traditional Vietnamese water sistant, who were only able to participate for the first two objects set out as exploratory fare for its young charges. puppets that now garner international fame and play days. The rest of us spent a full week together, becoming daily to tourists in Hanoi’s National Theatre. Nemo is close as we rehearsed, performed, and lived communally. concerned, instead, with the creativity sparked by building We visited 1-3 schools each day. These were private and performing new kinds of puppets, especially those schools, usually dedicated to strengthening students’ that engage children’s imaginations and address press- English language skills along with their other subjects, ing contemporary concerns. Originally part of a troupe although the level of English comprehension was called Baby Style, that performs muppet-style figures and decidedly mixed, as were the ages of the kids we saw. We comical body-puppets for young audiences, Nemo has ex- never knew quite what to expect until we walked into a panded his franchise to a project that brings international classroom. In the end we gave workshops to kids anywhere artists into schools throughout the lower Mekong Delta from toddler age (including one 15-month old) to high- 2%#)+&6#!#($/%'.1#+('#&1+(&4*-)(0/6#1(!/&.*3("-""#)!(;1*6(4-+(/#+7( for workshops and performances. The In and Out Peace *;()/#(3&)(4*('#&)/#1(!/&.*3()1*-"#((((("/*)*<(;-)-1#(!$/**'(!)&;; Arts Festival, inaugurated in October of 2018, strives to be an annual event. Sometimes it even occurs more often, alternately joyful and insufferable children’s mega hit as when Nemo organized another edition, ostensibly for Baby Shark, while the older ones made their plates into my benefit, when I visited Vietnam in January 2019. unique characters with additions of glasses, hair, noses The planning of this enormous endeavor, that and anything else they could think of. Surprisingly, the oldest students were most deeply engaged with the chance Nemo seems to run single-handedly, begins with a 3 +$178ɡ148͐& 0(.21**$+2/,&6 :21),567 35,=( ,1 call for international artists to apply. They must pay to express themselves creatively, even in this simple G)/#(&1)( *;(1#$5$'#H( 45(-+#!$*(*;;%$#( %+(2%#)+&6(9($*$&8$*'&( ;*-+.&)%*+(BCEJ8EK(3%)/(G!#&()-1)'#("-""#)(6&.#(;1*6(1#$5$'#.(3&!)#?H their own transportation to Ho Chi Min City, where way. It is exactly the dearth of opportunities for creative the performance tour begins, but, once there, are fully expression for young people that Nemo tries to address. At every location, we also did a performance, with Another of Nemo’s recent puppet intervention involved )/#(&-)/*1(3%)/(!)-.#+)!(&)()/#(0%+.5( each team contributing around 10 minutes worth of their working with Mekongaholics–a Mekong-based social, )*3+("1#!$/**'((("/*)*<(!$/**'(!)&;; art. Dao and Art’s piece, which combined masks, puppets, not-for-profit enterprise, which promotes peace and and physical theatre, was a reliable hit, the youngest kids sustainability through cultural and social collaborations actually falling off their seats with laughter. The sbek and uses applied arts in emotional and creative education– "* ") !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", and the Board of Cu Lao Cham Sea Conservation Area to build a large sea turtle out of recycled waste. Their design won first prize in a recycled art contest sponsored by UNESCO Vietnam and the Coca-Cola Foundation in 2018. The turtle will be used for on-site performances and in educational programs on protecting marine environments. His new dream is to create a Sesame Street style project for Vietnam. Nemo is also an avid soccer fan. Traveling around the country and abroad, dressed all in red, he cheers on the Vietnamese team. Invested . &(0 ** &( ! 0 G in both celebrating and expanding 7+(9,ʃ7$1+6&+22/35,1&,3$/+(5)5,(1'/<67$))$57,676 92/817((5660,/()257+(&$0(5$ Vietnamese culture, Nemo is a tireless & $, *G & # ( G & & " organizer, singlehandedly making deserving art, Nemo is, on his own, for Nemo, but they should be glad new inroads for puppetry in Vietnam. creating new infrastructures to bring that Nemo has been looking for them. While official organizations and their puppetry and storytelling to the next 5 , * #,## * #$ support go primarily to Vietnam’s generation. Vietnamese puppet lovers CLAUDIA ORENSTEIN is a professor [B)9/24%-(%*:$%;:+$0J%!\G%O] at Hunter College, New York City. water puppets, a wonderful and may not have known they were looking ! "#$%&'()(*+!!(*!! ,-,,%'&.!(*'%&*"'(/*"0 ! ,>&59=A@55@"/5&"%&@/B9@%@$5* .?5C9/@A.D95.E"%3 ('"&($**,& ,9395)&6+&:;:; POWER &&&&,>&?$.?2@/$5* CONFERENCE ('"&-."/012 <$=%9.%-&6+&:;:6 PUPPETS GO EXISTENTIAL SAVE $70 CAD MAY 29!31, 2020 CONFERENCE CENTRAL LIBRARY PASS EARLY CALGARY, ALBERTA, CANADA BIRD RATE *PURCHASE BY REGISTER TODAY: MARCH 21 CALL 403"228"3373 OR ONLINE: WPPUPPET.COM/BUY" PASSES &1$/%#(6$"/##(!/&0#!"#&1# "! (((((((((((((((((((("-+$/%+7("-""#) "" !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", While no theme is directly expressed, a stark juxtaposition emerges between the troupe’s home life in the village and their work in the city as the film unfolds. The scenes at home are warm, relaxed, and conversational. The troupe rehearses while kids run around livestock, and wives call from the houses, and it’s only here you catch a glimpse of the artists’ personal impressions. The scenes in the city are focused solely on preparations for the shadow theatre festival, in which the troupe endures long rehearsal periods with other local puppeteers for an original song that they will perform to an audience of dignitaries and officials. The documentary unfolds in the style of cinéma- Throughout their rehearsals, a gruff official vérité, which avoids the talking head interview barks orders at the troupe members, making approach and heavy exposition, and instead lets them feel small and unseen in the mass of !"#$%&'!($ performers. And outside, rehearsal for the you sink into the feeling of truly being there–a virtual fly on the wall. You are with the Huanxian festival’s opening show is also underway. Yi Cui’s Of Shadows opens with a long take. shadow puppet troupe in Gansu province as they Hundreds of performers move through giant The camera perfectly frames a Chinese shadow motorcycle up a long hill to a village gig, rehearse scenery to celebrate the region’s famous puppet screen that glows with warm light from in their courtyards for an upcoming show, or prepare shadow puppetry to blaring music, even behind. A discussion is overheard somewhere for a collaborative performance at Huanxian city’s while the shadow puppeteers are being offscreen and then you feel the performance massive Shadow Theatre and Folk Festival. Cui’s barked at indoors. coming on. The music swells, colorful shadows preference for wide shots also means that you aren’t Snippets of the troupe’s interviews are G,6`M!CR2M!-O!"!WO"GOW!a&56&7&89:!69;& fly in front of you, and the belting voices hit you just focused on the performers or their performance, inserted here and there, but they are never like a blast of fresh air. This opening take rolls but on the rich and equally enigmatic scene that included in full. Most often, Cui leaves the out long enough to have you question its length surrounds them, whether that be a lively village bulk of the interview out and gives us just PUPPETRY INTERNATIONAL and then forget your questioning as you settle into festival or a relaxed yaodong cave home where they the outtakes, the flubs, and the sections with the gratitude you feel for being able to watch a practice. By expanding the typical doc film framing, terrible sound. It is in this way we catch the +OP>QROH##HSTR"HH"QUH traditional Chinese shadow puppet troupe do what the audience feels pulled into the entire world of members truly unguarded for just a moment, unconscious of the camera and therefore just they do best: put on an enchanting performance. shadow puppetry in Gansu, China. !"#$%&!!'())*+,-./0#1212#3# themselves - they are an optimistic crew whose livelihood is slowly fading away. 45/#6(-78#".9#!:;;/.9<#40(,-,-=#(-7#>(0/ While those unfamiliar with Chinese shadow Directed by Yi Cui ?/(7),-/98#!//0#@/A,/B<#C:-/#D<#1212 puppetry’s history and current struggle to ]^!?)#F3&K!\!A.+.% # ##E/-/0()<#F:=:9.#D<#1212 T*#$*%)#!\!O#>+)KD!KFB3)3+&K remain relevant in a quickly shifting cultural and economic landscape may miss the facts NA*%FK!X)+?K5!08_^ !"#$%G##H;0,-=*H:II/0#121D#3 of the form’s predicament, the feeling of this struggle comes through with the utmost >J))/K.,J-9#(-7#>J))/K.J09 clarity. Of Shadows is a beautifully captured moment in the tumultuous history of Chinese ?/(7),-/98#!//0#@/A,/B<#?/K/IL/0#D<#1212 shadow puppetry. ########E/-/0()<#'/L0:(0M#D<#121D 'J0#N:))#9:LI,99,J-9#=:,7/),-/98# –by Annie Katsura Rollins www.unima-usa.org/puppetry-international/ PhD, Concordia University, Montreal "# "$ P U P P E T R Y I N T E R N A T I O N A L !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#$%!%&'#()%'$%#')*+**,!"-) !"#$"#%&'$"#($")*+$,-.# )/$$0%#!"0-&"$0!1"$(#,%,,-0#2-*0!3$(4#'$"5$(1&-4#!")!$ While many traditional forms of Indian puppetry The Dhaatu International Puppetry Festival has several struggle to find new audiences within India’s important features that are now annual expectations. One is a growing urban populations, Anupama Hoskere’s scholarly conference. In 2015 the theme was Exploring Classical puppet company, Dhaatu, meaning “roots” in Roots and Living Traditions in Puppetry. Hoskere is committed to Sanskrit, has successfully attracted Bangalore integrating puppetry into Indian discourses on classical performing spectators and scoped out new ways to bring India’s arts in an attempt to shift the often negative view it bears as a middle class to traditional arts. Her own work beggar’s art or unpolished folk practice. The 2019 theme was draws primarily on Karnataka’s mudalpaya style Puppets and Sets: Set Design and Lighting. It brought the discourse puppets, which rely on a mix of rods and strings out of traditional paradigms to investigations in new technologies. for manipulation. On her return to India years ago, The conference papers are published in a beautiful volume printed having completed a degree in engineering in the US, in time for the festival, full of lush photos and information about .&+$#1(.%25&(/*!0#1#("#1;*16!(&'*+7!%.#( Hoskere studied puppetry with local master M. R. the performances. All the shows are accompanied by Dhaatu company always presents a 4#&-)%;-'(!)1%+7("-""#)!(%+(./&&)-($*6"&+5:!( Ranganatha Rao. From him, she–along with family Another Dhaatu tradition is the puppet parade. A lively group music, usually, though not always, number of its own plays, sumptuously 0ń/$9,.ń*1,0,75$03+2726 7+($87+25 and friends she roped in to round out her troupe– of those involved in the festival carry their various puppets and performed live. Tales from the Hindu realized with painted backdrops and learned to carve wooden puppets and perform with instruments down Bangalore’s central, bustling streets, to bring Ramayana and Mahabharata epics and gorgeous puppets. In 2019 they premiered flame, dance at the beginning of each them. She has implemented some changes to the public attention to the upcoming program and promote puppet arts other traditional sources abound. In 2019 Malavikagnimitram, based on a classical presentation. Even while appreciating form, adding inspiring lighting designs, creating generally. In 2015 Hoskere convinced local officials to let her and Shri T. N. Sankaranathan’s Boomalatam, Sanskrit play by Kalidasa, in which this Hindu practice, it is still startling new shows on traditional themes, and applying her husband, Vidyashankar Hoskere, an engineer and architect, traditional string puppets from Tamil a rivalry between two dance teachers to see puppets of wood and string, classical aesthetics from her bharata natyam, Indian rebuild the bus stop near their home, Dhaatu’s home base, to turn Nadu, performed Vali Trumanan, about and their disciples is a central event. in flowing fabrics, surrounded by classical dance training, and received many awards it into an educational resource on Karnatakan puppetry. Its glass Lord Muruga’s courtship and marriage In a new experiment, Divya Hoskere, curtains, precariously toting wavering and accolades for her work. But among Hoskere’s sides now encase beautiful puppets and a map of Karnataka with to Valli, with a theme of bhakti devotion. Anupama’s daughter, a talented bharata flames. But the Yakshagana Gombeyata numerous impressive endeavors, one of her biggest markers showing all the spots where puppetry has flourished, along The Mothe Shankar team from Warangal natyam dancer, performed in the show performers take this skill to a new level accomplishments is the international puppetry with the name of each local form. Hoskere challenges festival guests in Andhra Pradesh, under the direction alongside the puppets and competed with a battle sequence that features festival she hosts each year in early January. I was to build puppet bus stops in their own communities. of Mahavilatha, showcased their large with a puppet dancer in the competition a fearsome character bearing a torch fortunate to attend the first edition in 2015 and The main highlight of the 3 to 4 day festival is the shows. Each wooden puppetry form with Lavaku- scene. Spoiler… the human wins. The with live fire, who then sets a house enjoyed the festival once more in 2019. year international guests are included. In 2015 Dimitri Jagenau sha, a story about Sita, King Rama’s most elaborate production the company aflame. While all the artists in the from Beligum’s Royal Peruchet Theatre and Dikushina Olga wife, and her two sons. Their strikingly has created, it toured the United States festival demonstrated amazing skill, from Russia’s Sumara Puppet Theatre took part. In 2019 Nadia painted and decorated figures are 4-5 the following summer. the lighting and burning of the house, Imperio of Italy’s Under the Strings performed as did Cengiz feet tall and require enormous strength The highlight of the 2019 festival, with the live flames lapping up against Özek, a specialist in Karagöz shadow theatre from Turkey. Along to operate from above. Panduranga however, had to be Sri Devi Mahatma the puppet’s strings, was a stand-out, with their Indian colleagues, international artists become part of a Bombeyaatada Tanda, a company that, from Gopalakrishna Yakshagana startling, thrilling, and, let’s face it, welcoming, temporary community, eating an abundant number of like Dhaatu, is trained by Rao, per- Gombeyata Sangha, under the direction slightly terrifying, feat. lavish Indian meals and snacks together in the tented rest area next formed Mulbaagal. The Karnataka rod of Ramesh Kasargud, featuring squat- Dhaatu’s annual puppet festival is to the JSS Auditorum hall where the performances take place. The and string form requires the performer figured string puppets from Karnataka. a rich gathering of puppetry events Dhaatu company is a supremely generous host. to wear, on the head, a ring with strings This form parallels the Yakshagana and importantly defies the often dour The unique richness of the event is its line-up of traditional attached to lift the weight of the puppet human dance-drama tradition in the predictions for traditional Indian arts Indian performers. The variety and depth of their artistry and control its swinging motions with puppets’ style of dress, their repertoire, through its attendance by Bangaloreans, amazes. Often coming from rural areas where their practices are the head and neck, while operating the and their mimicry of Yakshagana young and old. In 2019, young pup- losing patrons, these master performers, caretakers of India’s figure’s arms from a metal rod in each dance movements. Notably, all the peteers drawn from this demographic indigenous heritage, enchant a new generation of spectators. The hand. Tripura Puppet Theatre, under traditional Indian puppet shows at and trained by Dhaatu also performed, festival draws middle-class families, a following Hoskere has the direction of Prabhitangsu Das, by the festival begin with a prayer to offering another promising path for spent years cultivating. Shows originally done outside adjust to contrast, used a contemporary mix of Ganesh, the elephant-headed Hindu Indian puppetry’s future. the indoor proscenium stage. Most of the puppets, beautifully rod, shadow, and bunraku-style figures god, who, as “remover of all obstacles,” carved in wood, are sumptuously attired and ornamented. The for its Chandalika, a tale condemning insures a smooth presentation. Puppets —by Claudia Orenstein 2016 festival, however, was entirely devoted to shadow forms. prejudices against people from “un- carrying offerings, which include a live UNIMA-USA board member 6&/%!/&&!-1&@(4*1+(&!(&(;%#1$#(4-;;&'*(;1*6()/#($-1!#(*;(&(!&7#@(!#)!(*-)(;*1(4&))'#( touchable” backgrounds. %+(!1%(.#2%(6&/&)6&(;1*6(!1%(7*"&'&01%!/+&(5&0!/&7&+&(4*64#5&))&(!&+7/&?(((((((((((((((((((((( "% "& !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !./012&!"#$%&'%()"*'+,,'!$"-+).'/!$"',"0(1*+2" -'$$+3"4'.5"*%.5",!.(&!$"!,3"6!,76!3+"4%,3+&)" The audiences are large, in part because FIAMS (and other events) have fostered a culture in which art, theater and music are integral to the local psyche. This is a perfect example of the “creative economy” we keep hearing about. I imagine it took a lot of work to get grants, sponsors and even audi- ences for the first iterations of FIAMS. Creating a festival like this requires vision, patience, and the willingness to #-7#+%*(+&2&11*(&;)#1("#1;*16%+7(2&!*+#6 put in a lot of work without any assur- Finally, there is the group of invited The strategy is not without risk. If ance of success. The effort and canny professionals. This was my second invited guests find that the event is not programming achieved critical mass at FIAMS representing Puppetry Inter- well organized or that the performances some point and began to draw atten- national and (in addition to the many are second rate, word of that will also tion from funders and collaborators. professionals from Canada) there were get out to the wider world and FIAMS Success breeds success, and while I also journalists, festival organizers and will stop expanding. The organizers of know that the FIAMS staff still works theater center directors from Scotland, FIAMS, however, are more than just incredibly hard on every aspect of the the Netherlands, France, Italy, Brazil, talented event coordinators: They are festival, they are certainly helped by South Korea, Mexico, Mali, Israel, In- theater people. Co-directors Benoit the reputation they’ve developed as an dia, France, the US, Spain and China. Lagrandeur (Théâtre La Rubrique) and entity that is both culturally and eco- FIAMS organizers seek grant funding Dany LeFrançois (La Tortue Noire) nomically important. Puppet companies well in advance of the festival to support head up an administrative team of over want to be a part of FIAMS because it bringing these people to the festival, twenty. They know that the show must enhances their reputation. Funders want and the investment is a smart one. It go on, and that the show needs to grab to have their names associated with the guarantees that articles and reviews people and not let go, to astonish, de- festival. Government ministries see the about FIAMS will appear in foreign light, and leave its spectators changed. importance of FIAMS to their puppeteer #-*!*5(A;1%#+.!/%"D@(45($*6"&7+%#(+&6&@(6&'% newspapers, theater reviews, blogsites The next FIAMS will be in July, constituents around the province, who and newsletters. Festival organizers and 2021–plenty of time to plan your va- FIAMS has been around for thirty years, and as with other Saguenay, they are developing a brand as they push the art of gain a growing network of collabora- those programming events at puppet cation and brush up your high school glorious festivals with a track record (the “Festival Mondial” puppetry (and its practitioners) in new directions. The festival tors, increased visibility and expanded centers see performers they might not French (but don’t worry, most Québé- in Charleville-Mézières, “Puppets in the Green Mountains” in organizers have developed a local audience for puppetry, they opportunities to perform both in the be able to see elsewhere, get to know coises speak more than enough English Putney, Vermont), this festival has been reviewed many times. have developed partnerships with government ministries, cul- province and abroad. them both on and off stage and form to get you to the correct theater, the Such essays usually begin with an enumeration of the natural tural organizations and businesses, and they have made sure relationships that might lead to perfor- darkest coffee and the best croissant). or man-made wonders of the place, the storied hospitality of that performers at the festival (as well as other puppet artists mance contracts, artistic residencies or See you there! the local populace and an accounting of nearby landmarks from Québec) are seen by journalists, festival organizers and even international collaborations. There of cultural or historical significance. presenters from around the globe. are events co-sponsored by UNIMA and But how many times do we have to be told that Charleville- To the first point–a local audience for puppetry. FIAMS –by Andrew Periale by AQM (the Association québécoise Mézières, for instance, is the birthplace of Rimbaud? For began in 1989 in Jonquière, one of the several small towns des marionnettistes). Panel discussions, the “travel guide” version of FIAMS, I refer you to my own that eventually grew and merged to become “Saguenay.” Endnotes roundtables and lectures promote con- 1 Periale, Andrew: “Saguenay: a City, a Fjord, reviews of both the 2019 and 2017 iterations of this festival.1 Children who went to the first festivals are now of an age versations around topics that move the a Festival,” @699#%">*=(%#"(,%'2(,& #42, Let’s get right to the meat of the matter, the marrow, the where they are bringing their own children to see puppet fall/winter 2017, p 44. art form forward, and the nightly cabaret nitty-gritty, the nuts and bolts of the true significance of shows. The festival has gradually grown to so a size where ------“FIAMS: Un festival gives performers, programmers, journal- FIAMS (an acronym, by the way, that stands for Festival 45 companies from many countries are presenting multiple pour tout le monde! (A Festival for ists and other professionals a chance to Everyone!),” 8/#*@699#%">*526"(,&, International des Arts de la Marionnette à Saguenay). I’m performances at many sites both indoors and out in several of know each other outside of the theater fall 2019, vol. 70, no. 4, p 6. talking about good administration and its efforts to promote Saguenay’s boroughs. These performances are supplemented setting. This is true service to the field. the region’s puppetry and its puppeteers as both artists and by several well-curated museum and gallery exhibits as well successful businesses. They are not just mounting a festival in as spontaneous “happenings.” '#($%1>-#(*1"/#'%+($.6'6#7.6'("&6 "' "( !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", at night making it “posssible to see the as the museum video shows, “beats his (ca. 1800). The Chess Player, promoted 0-3"#%&0-45(678& time from bed.” Among some of the chest in penitence and regularly lifts his as a machine that could play and win other interesting clocks in this room is hands toward his lips,” in a gesture of chess against human opponents, was 82'+,2+"!,3"89$+,3%&"!.".5+":%(&.)"%-";(&%9+ an object called Two Spherical Clocks, kissing his rosary. celebrated throughout the courts of which consists of two golden clock orbs Even two-dimensional paintings Europe, but later revealed to be a hoax. held out by a sculpted hand–the hand of here get mechanized into movement. The object features a bearded figure, 0(,4*9*6",-#&0:7(:)&*;&/4, God–emerging from the wall. A unique Mechanical Painting with Scene clad in exoticized dress, set on top '(<&=*43&>",? feature of this style of object is that “the Changes, attributed to Antoine Watteau, of a large cabinet whose doors open body of the timepiece itself serves as the shows a gathering of nobles in a great to reveal several gears. The video The title of the exhibit, “Making ‘puppetesque’ treasures. First of all, as ready. An accompanying video helpfully weight that drives it.” hall. Their salon is decorated, in turn, accompanying the piece here is from Marvels: Science and Splendor at the the title does say, the exhibit reveals shows this automaton clock in motion: The following room takes visitors with three imposing painted images of Raymond Bernard’s 1927 silent film, Courts of Europe,” at New York’s that European courtiers from 1550- the heads of the two leopards pulling her further into the period’s fascination with their own. A series of gears at the back The Chess Player, and features an actor Metropolitan Museum of Art, doesn’t 1750 had a great interest in the latest chariot turn slowly as the animals rise. automatons, “mechanized figures based of the artwork moves panels to shift and playing the object’s creator bringing sound like it promises anything of scientific discoveries, and beautifully Diana’s eyes shift back and forth while on the same self-moving gear systems change the paintings within the painting, a Hollywood facsimile of the marvel unique interest to puppeteers. However, crafted scientific and mechanical objects the chariot rolls forward and, eventually, that powered clocks.” In this room are redecorating the nobles’ surroundings. to perform at a court gathering. The if you make your way past the highly were prized alongside other decorative finding her mark as the chariot stops, several objects used in what seem to be Animated Painting of Saint-Ouen has a Draughtsman-Writer was the inspiration ornamented ewers and game boards, things. All kinds of Renaissance and Diana’s fingers release the bow, sending fairly popular courtly drinking games. mechanism in the back that allows the for Brian Selznicks’ book, The Invention the jewel-and-shell-encrusted curios, later gadgets including telescopes, the small arrow flying. For these, an elaborately designed boats and other figures in this idyllic of Hugo Cabret, made into the film and the other expensive and sometimes sundials, globes, planispheric astrolabes, Across the room is a Musical figure of some kind–a turtle with setting to glide across the scene. Hugo in 2011. It has a subtly painted, gaudy wonders that European nobles surveying tables, encryption devices, Automaton Clock with Spinet and Organ. Neptune riding on its back, a deer, The exhibit ends with two famous handsome face, but its body, except for kept in their courts to display not only Petrus Apianus’ Astronomicum The accompanying label describes this Bacchus in his chariot — has a cup androids: a 1975-2005 reproduction its fleshed-out hands, is predominantly their wealth, but their knowledge and Caesareum (a book with moveable unusual object as “a combination cleverly incorporated into it. The of the Chess Player (The Turk), the a simple metal frame. It sits at a desk, a power (enticing as these objects might disks to “demonstrate astronomical of clock, musical instrument, and automaton moves across the table to a original built ca. 1769, and Henry white paper before it, writing implement be), you will find some inspiring measurements”), an aeolipile (an object automaton” and notes that the commedia guest who must drain the cup of wine Maillardet’s The Draughtsman-Writer in hand. It has the capability to write or that creates steam and can also appear dell’arte figures at the top of the item before sending the mechanical sketch out three different poems to spit fire if heated), and a portable spin and dance to the music and “jump object on to another guest. There and four different drawings. The diptych are on display. One unique large on the hour.” In the display case, the are also table centerpieces that museum label offers that this wooden object, Mechanical Paradox, the elaborate mechanism that fits inside spout fountains of wine or water. object made its creations “through size of a small spinet piano, is purely for the object, to make the music, has This gallery likewise contains a technology that foretold the purpose of demonstrating an action been pulled out and placed next to Friedrich von Knaus’s 1760 the computer.” This android, of physics in which a large brass cone the clock frame to disclose its cogs Miraculous Writing Machine: A then, is both the culmination appears to roll uphill along the sloped attached to a wooden frame encasing an small metal figure sits on top of of Renaissance Europe’s wooden panels on which it rests. instrument of pleated cloth folds. Again, a globe, (itself on a large marble enchantment with science and The simultaneous interest of a helpful video shows the object, fully pedestal), quill in hand. It can splendor and the gateway to our the period in beauty and mechanics assembled, in motion, and we can enjoy be programmed to write up to own contemporary interests and expressed itself in the building of clocks for ourselves seeing the little figures 107 different words onto a white obsessions. of every kind, and one gallery is devoted cavort to their tunes. paper next to it by rearranging Puppeteers may also enjoy in to a diversity of these, whose moving One highly unique piece is Magic various pegs within the works this exhibit the wonderful tools parts often go beyond clockworks to set Lantern “Zapper” Clock, which projects contained inside the globe. This on display, used to craft some of other figures in motion. One small gold images painted on glass slides onto a room also houses Automaton these amazing objects. Especially clock here is encased within a model of a wall. In the display case, next to the in the Form of a Monk, a fairly captivating is Leonhard Danner’s chariot ridden by the Roman goddess of decoratively ornamented clock, which well-known Spanish figure of a Wire Drawing Bench of the the hunt, Diana, her bow and arrow at the sports a huge projection lens above its monk who, when set in motion, Saxon Electors, which was used clock face, lies an array of the glass for making thin wires out of &))1%4-)#.()*(=-&+#'*()-11%&+*@(!"&+%!/@(ELCC, slides, painted with the portraits of )/#(.1&-7/)!6&+831%)#1@($&?(EJCC?( various metals. It was built for ELJL?()/#(6*2%+7(6*+0@(6%.,EM)/($#+)-15?( friends and relatives of the clock’s 41&!!@(!)##'@(3**.@(;%4#1?(LJ(?(FN(LPJ( Prince Practitioner Augustus, 3**.@(%1*+?(;%7-1#<(EM(?(L(?(M(%+?(ANC?M(?( ?(BB(FPJ(%+?(AENO?F(?(JO?K(?(LM?K( Elector of Saxony who, like EB?O(?(EL?B($6D?()/#(!6%)/!*+%&+(%+!)%)-)%*+@( owner. The back of the timepiece is open $6@(EJENFO7D?()/#(;1&+0'%+(%+!)%)-)#@( +&)%*+&'(6-!#-6(*;(&6#1%$&+(/%!)*15?( so we can see where these slides can "/%'&.#'"/%&@("&?( some nobles, apparently, actually enjoyed trying their own hands at "/*)*($1#.%)<(&1$/%2#($#+)#1@(+&)%*+&'(6-!#-6( be set inside to create the projections. "/*)*($1#.%)<(/%!)*1%$&'(&+.( ornamental crafting and who, with *;(&6#1%$&+(/%!)*15@(!6%)/!*+%&+(%+!)%)-)%*+( The museum label also tells us that “the %+)#1"1#)%2#($*''#$)%*+!(*;()/#( dial itself” can be projected on a wall ;1&+0'%+(%+!)%)-)#@("/%'&.#'"/%&@("&@( his wife, “sought out activities… "/*)*(45($/&1'#!("#++%6&+( #* #) !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", to help improve the Saxon economy.” The long wooden While puppetry has often been seen as an also-ran bench is decorated all along its sides with images of jousting in the great cultural movements of Europe, this exhibit !"##$%&'()'%*$' tournaments–one of Augustus’s favorite pastimes–made in demonstrates that European courtiers’ obsessions and desires marquetry or inlaid woods. Its legs are lavishly sculpted, led these great nobles straight to the main occupation of +,$$)'-.")%/()&'0$&%(1/23' and it appears here with all the accompanying tools and puppetry, animating the inanimate. parts brought together for the exhibit from a number of W..3K!*#$!P)#>K!!2&<3&?B&%!:L_95!0808 different collections. During the two-hundred-year period that the exhibit — — by Claudia Orenstein covers, the need for the wealthy and powerful to display Scholar, dramaturg, director, actor their status and influence through objects resulted not only in lovely decorative items, but in experiments to draw science and art together, and ultimately in the attempt November 25, 2019- to bring movement and the illusion of life to inanimate March 1, 2020 matter—the work, of course, of the puppeteer. /&8%!/(2#/&)#%2& +*!(2*'2%6*!(4Q;&'*!($*6"&RS&(4&+5&+(.#(6&1%*+#)&!( )/#(.&5(65(;&)/#1(4#$&6#( "/*)*<(.&2%.(!)#$0 &(4-!/ !"-,-&#,-&1<(&1"/$=.&>#,-$1.&."()?0&=/@-&1"-/,&3"/?0,-$A&,((1.&#$0&&E,--&1"-C&E,(C&3($.1,#/$1.&#$0&>,-F)0/3-.&#$0&=/@-& G %5 , , * & *G 1"-C&(1"-,&<#'.&1(&1,#@-?&G(,*&,#1"-,*&1(&E?'HB&&&&&&&&&&&&IJ.&3D& 333?6&1%*+#))#!%+2#+%$#?$*6P 5 ,#,## *G5 ,% How does our work model the society we wish to live in and the With performances for all ages as well as shows specifically better world we are reaching for? Sandglass acknowledges that for adults, the Festival will welcome artists from Kenya, Israel, [N/,"#99$+%C/4:*5"%^+$)9J%!!!G%@] this work is in the way we practice our art, in how we curate Germany, Mexico, France as well as performers and other and present other artists, and in assembling the colleagues guests from around the US and Indigenous Nations. “Roots & and partners that we know can help us achieve this goal and Wings” marks our third consecutive Festival created around expand our resources. As Sandglass looks forward to the next a social justice theme. generation of artists, community leaders, and global citizens, All venues in the Puppets in the Green Mountains festival Goethe’s words take on a contemporary urgency, and we want are wheelchair-accessible. Two shows will be offered with to leave a foundation from which we can all build and fly. ASL interpretation: Flushing September 10th at 7:30pm and September 8th-13th 2020, Sandglass Theater, in Vermont, The Day my Father Became a Bush September 12th at 11am. is presenting the 11th biennial Puppets in the Green Sandglass welcomes people of all abilities, and strives to Mountains International Festival (PGM): Roots and Wings. provide programming that is inclusive and accessible to all. This festival is made possible, in part, with the generous support of Sandglass Theater’s funders, sponsors, board members, and volunteers. Funding is also provided by The Clowes Fund, The National Endowment for the Arts, The New England puppetsinthegreenmountains.net Foundation for the Arts, Puppeteers of America, and the Vermont Humanities Council. PUPPETRY INTERNATIONAL !"#$%$!&$'&(#$)#$#%$*!()+#,-# .//012/341 5-#+,6#7,89)#"((#!):# ;10# #! #" !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", La Poussière et la Couronne (Dust and the Crown) is paper theater, presented by the company Yase Tamam (Iran). Its paper puppets arse animated by two puppeteers seen against the endless, backless black of the stage. The paper puppets–full figures, profiles, crowns–are connected to a grid of elastic bands on the floor, and this grid itself becomes a sort of puppet when the puppeteers Every second year for ten days in September the Renaissance raise it at the end. It’s all meticulously lit. city of Charleville-Mézières in northeastern France hosts The story concerns ambition, murder and power, with Festival mondial des theatres de marionnettes–The World references to Hamlet and Macbeth. There’s no mistaking Festival of Puppetry. The 2019 event was the 20th annual, the recurrent phrase (Je suis mort) or the Shakespearean and I was lucky enough to be there with my critic’s notebook. allusions such as Hamlet’s poison cup. Sometimes the Here are a few of the highlights of the festival. puppeteers become the characters, speaking themselves. ______The stage picture is eerie and expressionist, and the entire effect of Dust and the Crown is one of sad Old Trout Puppet Workshop (Canada) treated us to a mostly resignation, enhanced by the delicacy of the puppets. wordless piece called Famous Puppet Death Scenes. It ______consisted of perhaps 16 short, unrelated vignettes depicting the oh-so-tragic death of a puppet, e.g.: Macunaima Gourmet is a large puppet show–the ;&6*-!("-""#)(.#&)/(!$#+#!((("/*)*<(=&!*+(!)&+7("/*)*71&"/5 4&0-(6&1%*+#))#()/#&)1#@(($.%$%'.!'-#)+&+ In a recurrent motif, a poor fellow at the opera is cast is large; the stage is large; most of the puppets are UHSHDWHGO\SXPPHOHGE\DKXJHÀVWDVPXFKDVKH large, complex and beautiful. It comes from the company Pigmalião escultura que mexe (Brazil). It’s poetic and tries to avoid it; Leyly et Majnun, produced by Baku Marionette Theatre political, using both puppets and human actors. This is the hero of the people in Brazilian myths. In Macunaima An innocent boy is lured into a villain’s home by a (Azerbaijan), is an exquisite marionette opera written by puppet as cultural symbol. Gourmet he’s played by a large brownish puppet that has lollipop–and eats the evil old man; the great composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli, sourcing Western and The puppets are varied. Some are marionettes. been fattened up and sold as canned meat. He’s ultimately Eastern musical traditions. Its story is based on a narrative Puppets (puppets of what?) on a German game show One actor has a puppet of a man tied in front of him; fed to an obese puppet whose features resemble Jair poem from the 16th century that echoes Romeo and Juliet. have to choose the Ja door or Nein door–and either another has a puppet in front of him from the waist up. Bolsonaro. But nature triumphs: The fat puppet dies from The small marionettes are gorgeous, elaborately designed. way, the ogre eats them; The human-sized, free-standing puppets are sometimes overeating and the ants, the symbol of transcendent nature, The music, recorded, is lovely and varied, graced by a haunting manipulated by multiple puppeteers. carry him off. This play skims the tragedy off life and then tosses it solo female voice, nearly wailing in, I assume, Azerbaijani. The story is based on Mário de Andrade’s 1928 Its opening is stunning: We hear the sounds of the rain away–Grand Guignol meets Feydeau. Old Trout Puppet The seven puppeteers are integral to the presentation. They novel Macunaima. The title character is a native, born forest–rain, chirping–and the forest is bustling with people, Workshop exploits puppets’ remarkable ability to trivialize. move with slow deliberateness. To call this production a show ants and other creatures. The actors They make us superior to death, and we can laugh at it, as if is to trivialize it–it’s a ritual, mystical theater: mysterious don’t speak much, and when they do, today were The Day of the Dead. and universal. they speak a few different languages ______and a muffled gibberish that’s the puppetry equivalent of vocalese. La potion de reincarnation (The Potion of Reincarnation) is Garage is a wordless play from Cirka Teater (Norway). It At the end, we’re presented with a brilliant puppet show from Jin Kwei Lo Puppetry Company calls itself “objects theatre,” and the two mechanics we find a list of exploiting parties, including (Taiwan), presented in Chinese. tinkering in their garage are indeed joined on stage by a crowd the Catholic Church, USA and Donald In Buddhist-Taoist mythology, a soul is reborn only of objects large and small, electrical and automatic: pulleys, Trump. Finally, the cast unrolls a banner after meeting Old Lady Meng and drinking from her cup levers, wheels… They’re all put industriously to work, one saying, “Lula Livre.” of forgetfulness. In this play, a woman is reincarnated three action triggering the next. The story concerns literally blowing Macunaima Gourmet is superb, times without finding happiness. a fuse and then reviving the elaborate mechanism. exemplary work using puppetry’s The puppets are small, delicate hand puppets, elaborately Garage is fascinating to watch, complex and kinetic, a dressed. The puppeteers dress them on stage with ritualistic, fascinating extended metaphor. It’s animated by the moment- unique political voice. Viva para meticulous care. We can see that this is a ceremony. to-moment life of the actors. Their expressive flow of emotion Pigmalião escultura que mexe! Some scenes are spooky, heavy with shadow, and the play highlights the lifelessness of the mechanism looming about –by Steve Capra ends with Old Lady Meng telling the woman that if she cries, them. Objects don’t overwhelm people in this garage. Men are Actor, critic, playwright she’ll forget her life. What a mournful thought! Let no one in control, but they don’t recognize the power of mechanics. say puppetry is just for children. This production is mystical ______and profound. ______$%10&()#&)#1@(7#2#7.((("/*)*<('&1!(*"!)&. ## #$ !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*",+,!" -, #" -, #" ., $" , , " ., " -, %" /, &" 0, '" -, (" 1, &" -, )""" 2,,, !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*", all-female puppet company, and the high-class Kungsholm were mostly male, and the repertoire shifted from classic operas to Broadway pretensions of the mansion-based restaurant musicals, in an ill-fated attempt to attract new audiences. In 1971, the enterprise folded; 3/#456%78+9#0#5$:&(+;&50"+<=(&58 and its after-dinner opera spectacles. a Paul Harvey vice president, according to Coad, said “the theater cost us $6,000 per VF?*#!Z.*$5!J"/3#=(K.&L/$/#1),-&M,#$0&N>-,#.A& Fredrik Chramer died in 1960, and the month, and nobody came to see the damn thing.” J"/3#=(&L/$/#1),-&N>-,#*&O)$=."(?C&L/$/#1),-&M,#$0&N>-,#*&N>-,#& Kungsholm theater was taken over by the But even this was not the end. William B. Fosser, who had worked with Ernest Wolff /$&P(3).B!J*%$&#!-*I5!-@Z@b!ZD*%+&?*>#&!(%&KK5!08_^@!_;0!<<@!c;8@ Fred Harvey restaurant company, but the in the 1940s, started his own rod-puppet company, Opera in Focus, in 1955, and invented changing culture of the 1960s made it harder an improved design of Kungsholm-style rod puppets, which he patented 1961. He began Prodigious puppet publisher Luman Coad and his Charlemagne Press continue their for a puppet grand opera to survive. A very working for Kungsholm Grand Opera in 1964, but left contentiously three years later. admirable series of books about American puppetry with the first comprehensive history different insight into this period of Kungsholm Fosser seems always to have been in search of a permanent home for his work, which he of Chicago’s unique form of rod-puppet opera, which Ernest Wolff and his mother Esther history is offered by another Charlemagne finally found in the Chicago suburb of Rolling Meadows in 1993, and maintained until initiated in the mid-1930s, and which still, amazingly, lives on today. Coad’s loving at- Press book, Subplot: Memoirs of Chicago’s his death in 2006. The Opera in Focus company has since continued under the aegis of tention to Chicago’s Miniature Grand Operas clarifies the history of this particular—and Kungsholm Grand Opera, by Gary Jones brothers Shayne and Jason Snyder, whose current repertoire includes the classic operas particularly popular—form of American puppetry that has managed to survive as a self- (see PI #45). Jones complements Coad’s Pagliacci, Madame Butterfly, and Tosca, as well as such musicals as Showboat, South supporting enterprise and cultural lodestone of a major American city. The Turnabout over-arching historical view with a detailed, Pacific, and Carousel. Theatre survived for 15 years (1941-56) in Los Angeles; Bil Baird’s Barrow Street behind-the-scenes autobiographical look For many puppeteers and puppet aficionados, the story of Chicago’s miniature grand Theater lasted for 21 years in New York (1966-87); and New York’s Swedish Cottage at what it meant to work as a Kungsholm opera has been hard to piece together, or perhaps unknown altogether. One might be aware Marionette Theatre has been active since 1947 (in part due to its support from the city’s puppeteer and designer, as well as a young, of its existence, but the details have been tantalizingly murky. Coad’s lovingly assembled Parks Department), but the Chicago miniature opera tradition stands out for its endurance. gay, African American artist in the often book, which is also rich in period illustrations and scores of contemporary puppet portraits, Chicago has long had a rich and dynamic puppet history since Ellen van Volkenburg raucous late sixties. As Jones recounts, the finally allows us to understand the achievement of this particularly important and unique began her puppet experiments with the Chicago Little Theatre in 1912. This continued puppet companies in the declining years of aspect of American puppetry. with Burr Tillstrom’s pioneering television work beginning in the late 1940s, followed by '&()#(*+,-+.%/0+1(22 a series of puppet enterprises currently crowned by Blair Thomas’s Chicago International dismay. (Why the puppet opera theater was Bell is the Director of the Ballard Puppet Theater Festivals. Chicago’s miniature grand opera tradition is less well known, given the Swedish name Kungsholm remains Institute and Museum of Puppet but no less important as a landmark of Chicago—and American—puppet practice in the a mystery.) By 1943, Chramer’s puppet 20th and 21st centuries. company was performing a repertoire of Coad points out that the Chicago miniature grand opera style, while it appears to be 14 different operas, with over 300 puppets highly idiosyncratic, is actually related to eastern European rod-puppet nativity plays operated by a company of almost exclusively (vertep in Ukraine, batleyka in Belarus, and szopka in Poland), in which diminutive women puppeteers. +)>>-1.*&M(0.*&#$0&5,#$0. puppets whose control rods pass through a slotted stage floor are operated by puppeteers Kungsholm’s post-war period was marked M&%)!C@!2)+H).5!&$)3&$!BI!"++)K.#!"+&/I@ below. Coad surmises that upper-middle-class Chicago housewife Mrs. Esther T. Wolff by a costly 1947 fire that destroyed “puppets, +)>>-1.*&M(0.*&#$0&5,#$0.A&!"-(,/Q/$=&1"-& may have seen such puppet shows as a child in Czechoslovakia; at any rate, this vertep costumes, scenery, props, stage, and lights”; in 7=-&(E&7$/C#1/($&E,(C&!#/<#$@! tradition, as well as a 19th-century-style toy theater for which her son Ernest Wolff addition, Ernest Wolff filed and won a lawsuit 7.#.+F+Fb!R#)H&%K)3I!.4!7*'*))!(%&KK5!08_^ created three-dimensional clay figures, seems to have influenced the first grand opera against Chramer about the rights to Wolff’s shows in Chicago. work. Chramer had to pay Wolff $15,000, but might intimidate a reader concerned with tropes of performance to be productive in Puppet opera has a longstanding history going back to the 17th century, and it has won the right to continue performing puppet questions of puppetry and not necessarily exploring service work. Silvio notes that long offered tantalizing opportunities to re-create opera’s spectacle combination of music, operas. Wolff, his mother, and their company well-versed on Taiwanese culture. However, this shift from performance to animation drama, dance, and visual art on a miniature scale. Ernest Wolff was a self-described “opera then continued to perform their own puppet Puppets, Gods, and Brands calls on us, as a model of social interaction does not addict for life” from a young age, and his enthusiasm for miniature rod-puppet opera operas on a travelling basis, but by 1949 retired as scholars of puppetry, to attend to the diminish the emotional labor of service productions, with recordings of actual opera companies providing the sound, soon found from the field for economic reasons. form’s interconnection with other forms work, but this work is carried out in a appreciative audiences outside his immediate family. By the mid-1930s Wolff, his mother, In 1952 Chramer opened a newly built of animation. It makes puppetry relevant more fractured manner. In the twenty- and as many as three other puppeteers, as well as a lighting and a sound technician, were Kungsholm theater adjacent to the McCormick to scholarly discussions of animism. It first century, interactions are increasingly performing Carmen, Aida, Die Walküre, and other classic works on a travelling puppet mansion, and this remained the home of the helps us to think through cultural contexts mediated. In developing this theoretical stage at “ladies’ clubs, musical societies, lodges, social groups, and schools” in the Chicago puppet company until it closed in 1971. The in which puppet forms unfold. Moreover, frame, Silvio draws from anthropologists area. By 1939 the 24-year-old entrepreneur and his company were performing for 1,800 Kungsholm Miniature Grand Opera thrived Silvio conveys to a broad audience the concerned with similar questions on the people every day at the New York World’s Fair, and Wolff had secured sponsorship from in Chicago during this time, and it attracted Scholars and fans of puppetry will find relevance of considering puppetry as semiotics of animation and related issues of the RCA Victor Company, a major distributor of opera records. mainstream opera fans (dressed to the nines many reasons to celebrate anthropologist illuminating a host of other issues. characterization. Here, she is in conversation The second phase of Chicago miniature opera began in 1941, when Wolff headed in tuxedos and formal gowns) as well as Teri Silvio’s new ethnographic monograph. The theoretical framework that Silvio with anthropologists and with theorists overseas to serve in the Second World War, and Chicago restaurateur Fredrik Chramer celebrity opera stars. One of the riches of It is impressive in its ability to bring together builds surrounding what she hails as the of media, animation, and anime. Silvio wanted to install the opera puppet theater in his Kungsholm Restaurant, a classy joint Coad’s history is his inclusion of several seemingly disparate phenomena, including “Age of Animation” is crucial to this project. makes productive use of psychoanalytical ensconced in the old McCormick mansion on Chicago’s North Side. Here the story gets facsimiles of press accounts of the Kungsholm the puppets, gods, and brands of the title, Chapter 1 is dedicated to the distinction of questions of projection and object relations, complicated and nasty, because when Chramer opened his Kungsholm Miniature Grand phenomenon, which marvel at the ingenuity along with cosplay, geopolitical relations, animation versus performance, arguing that drawing in particular from the theories of Opera that year, he claimed full credit for inventing the concept, much to the Wolffs’ of the slotted puppet stage, the novelty of its and analogic ontology in Taiwan. Its scope the latter half of the twentieth century found D.W. Winnicott. #% #& !"#"!"!"$"%"&"'"""(")"%"$"&")"*"%"("+")"*",+,!" -, #" -, #" ., $" , , " ., " -, %" /, &" 0, '" -, (" 1, &" -, )""" 2,,, Having laid this theoretical frame, Silvio grounds her discussion Chapter 5 examines cosplayers of Pili. Here, Silvio finds in contemporary Taiwan, where she points to a particular “mode” animation and performance intertwined. She notes that as of animation, arguing that a “mode of animation connects specific Pili puppetry styles change, so that the puppet is increasingly forms of animation art, ritual practice, scientific project, and so on by humanized in the series, human beings doing cosplay become virtue of what they share in the different parts of my broad definition “puppetized” (162). Cosplayers are mostly women, though male of animation” (53). To characterize a particularly Taiwanese mode fans comprise the majority of passive viewers. Many cosplayers of animation in Chapter 2, Silvio points to the ang-a, a specific type focus on cinematic poses to recreate scenes from the series, treating of object that is a three-dimensional, anthropomorphic figure that their bodies as 3-D puppets (166). While this chapter thus focuses is “invested with specific human qualities (personality, affect, and on how a person can become like a puppet, the final body chapter charisma) through specific types of actions (ritual, iconographic, and considers how an animated figure can stand in for an entire nation. communicational practices)” (55, italicized in the original). Silvio Chapter 6 examines a cell-animated cartoon, Axis Powers Hetalia, relates parallels between practices of idol worshippers and fans of a to consider the politics of animation and the ability of animation to digital “knights-errant” puppetry series. This series, produced by the personify national character. Silvio argues that Axis Powers Hetalia Pili International Multimedia Company, is a complex remediation of offers an example of taxonomic (rather than dyadic) stereotype, in the traditional hand puppetry of Taiwan, po-te-hi. Silvio contrasts the that each character is a stereotype of a country, but they are all on Taiwanese mode of animation to that of Japanese manga and anime an equal power footing, more or less. using recent anthropological schematizations of ontological systems. In her conclusion, Silvio invites us to “ask what it might mean While, as other scholars have noted, Japanese manga and anime show to think of the future in terms of animation—that is, how we remake parallels with an animist worldview, the Taiwanese mode of animation the world by projecting and materializing parts of our selves” (205). fits into the analogist one. In this worldview, Silvio explains, there is Such a provocation should be exciting to the puppet community, as less of a clear separation between the real and the fantasy. Characters it invites us to consider puppetry as a way of broadly conceiving are psychologically believable and possess real-world counterparts of political work. In sum, while not every chapter focuses solely (85). This argument is significant to scholars of puppetry in illustrating or explicitly on puppetry, the book theorizes issues of animation, the need to ground beliefs about animation in wider cultural systems. materiality, performance, and related issues masterfully, offering In Chapter 3, Silvio turns her attention to issues of folk religion, exciting new theorizations of animation that will give any scholar commercialization, and cuteness by examining the rise of Daoist and of puppetry much to consider. Methodologically, it is impressive in Buddhist deities sold as cute figurines, at a Taiwanese convenience its use of interviews with a wide range of individuals, from artists store and then in other sites. Silvio considers the semiotics of cuteness and designers to fans, collectors, and cosplayers. Silvio mentions at play as they intersect with marketing campaigns and with collectors’ that it is a work fifteen years in the making. This was clearly time beliefs about the abilities of such figurines to serve as vessels for divine well spent, and we all stand to benefit from the work’s brilliant presence and to cultivate relations of intimacy between the figurines theoretical and ethnographic breadth and depth. and the collectors. Chapter 4 looks at efforts to expand Pili popularity –review by Meghanne Barker to global audiences and the issues that come up when spectators view the form based on their own experiences with puppetry or animation. Barker is a linguistic anthropologist at the University of Chicago. UNIMA-USA !"#$%&'(#)*( UNIMA-USA is happy to announce our annual scholarship of $1,000 that will be awarded to American puppeteers to attend training workshops abroad. The deadline for applications is December 1st for study in the following year. -+)#1 / ( For more information:: -1) 0 www.unima-usa.org/scholarships <( [email protected] &1)3*10 ( P$),%)6-#*%%"<:-7)+":/=%+$ #' SPRING and SUMMER 2020 Issue #47 PPUPPETRYUPPETRY I NTERN ATI O N AL ",## *( ) (# & $5.95 US $7.95 CAN PLACE UPC same as last time but replace ÀQDOGLJLWVZLWK WKHSXSSHWLQFRQWHPSRUDU\WKHDWUHÀOP PHGLD !"!!#$%&' ()$#%)*$(+)*,' (-' .")/#/0' ()' !*%$0' 1&' *' 2%*)$' .%+3' $4#' )*$(+)*,' #)/+53#)$' .+%' $4#' *%$- !"#$%"&#$'&(("#) Thank you UNIMA-USA Major Donors !"#$%&'$!( &#(*&($ !"#$"%&'(%&)*++"$%,&-%$. !/"%,0&1"#.(# L7#J"&-#$/(#, H700749&14%+"%& 2/"&34#"&1"#.(#&5(*#64$7(# )49&-%J7"%(& 8%7.$7#&14G"%$,& D40J(9&@N&<"4*6"$$& :4%7#&3(/#.(#& )%*%+',-($. :(%7.&<"#K :74#"&A&I7J/4%6&8(.K4%.=7& 84$/,&5(0", 2%*67&!(/"# &D4%=&>"G"#.(#& 2/"&379&1"#.(#&5(*#64$7(#& O4#J,&!(0" !(0"$$"&@"4%0.& 8*%$&1*#$"%& I*$/&!(++"%.97$/& 3(4##&@7"?%7.$ &?ZQM[ 3(/#&:*#J4# !4%(0&@$"%07#ٺ4aVV32M 279&:*#;(%$/& <4.70&2;7.$& #'-$(* !/%7.&:*%97J=& L7J=7"&A&I7J=&L7#J"#$& 2(9&5(?4%$,& 3(6,&H%"#& :%";&-007.(#& :(%07.&P%*Q76?"& )"$"%&A&34%9704&M4+0"$40 <%46'(%6&!04%=& >,##"&3"##7#?.& @$"+/"#&84+07#&A&8*4#?BC*&5(#?& &,/(0'$&/!# &]ZQMٺD4#*"0&D(%E# 4aVVM32M !04*674&F%"#.$"7#&& &@$"+/"#&84+07#&A&8*4#?BC*&5(#? 84%"#&@97$/& <4%$&)N&I(JJ(Q"%$(#R&3%N @$"G"#&H76"%94#