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Blackface Puppetry in American Theatre, 1872-1939

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Blackface Puppetry in American Theatre, 1872-1939 ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF RACIALISM: BLACKFACE PUPPETRY I N AMERICAN THEATRE, 1872-1939 Benjamin Daniel Fisler, Doctor of Philosophy, 2005 Dissertation Directed by: Professor Franklin J. Hildy Department of Theatre In 1872, a company headed by English theatrical entrepreneur William John Bullock introduced the first full marionette minstrel show to the American stage . Throughout the following sixty -seven years, puppeteers presented a variety of productions featuring ostensibly African or African American characters, including: traditional blackface minstrel shows, adaptations of Helen Bannerman’s Little Black Sambo, numerous “Punch and Judy” plays, and productions of such ostensibly “authentic” portraits of black persons as Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones and Jo el Chandler Harris’s “Uncle Remus” stories. This investigation employs phenomenology to explore the “essence” of specific blackface puppets, maintaining that none of the objects or plays discussed here are nece ssarily examples of authentic black representation. Rather, this investigation adopts the shifting perspective of phenomenology to show that what some past puppeteers thought were authentic African or African American characters, were, with but a single exception, consistently racialized exaggerations derived from the heritage of minstrelsy. Phenomenology, in its emphasis on the essence of “things,” permits the scholar to investigate both the physical existence of empirically verifiable objects, such as th e puppets that are still in existence long after the deaths of their creators, and the meanings their observers embed them with, such as the character the puppets were imagined to be during their manipulators’ careers. Phenomenology helps explain the inter action between the puppet’s corporeal form and its perceived dramatic meaning, which is often a result of apportioned, or as some critics call it, atomized components, including: object, manipulation, and voice. Thus, while phenomenology is useful in explaining how an early twentieth -century puppet eer might see Topsy as an authentic representation of a young African American woman, even if an early twenty -first century scholar would see it as a minstrel stereotype, it is equally useful in explaining how different components of a single puppet performance could contribute to a contradictory essence for a single blackface character. This investigation details the careers of a number of puppeteers and puppet companies, using the phenomenological method to explain the diverse essences of their work. Included are companies spanning a history from the Royal Marionettes to the Federal Theatre Project. THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF RACIALISM: BLACKFACE PUPPETRY I N AMERICAN THEATRE, 1872-1939 By Benjamin Danie l Fisler Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2005 Advisory Committee: Profes sor Franklin J. Hildy, Advisor Professor Karen Bradley Professor John Fiscella Professor Lawrence W. Mintz Professor Heather S. Nathans © Copyright by Benjamin Daniel Fisler 2005 Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to Eric a Joy Fisler. Without her never -ceasing love, I would not be able to bear the burdens of existence . ii Acknowledgements I offer my sincerest thanks to all who helped this dissertation on its long journey. I offer my great thanks to my advisor and mento r, Franklin J. Hildy, to the members of my committee, Karen Bradley, John Fiscella, Lawrence W. Mintz, and Heather S. Nathans, and to all the faculty of the University of Maryland that I have had the great pleasure of working with on this research, among t hem Carol Burbank, Merle Collins, and Judith Markowitz. I offer my thanks to several organizations and their faculty/staff that were especially generous throughout my research. The David Driskell Center for the Study of Africa and the African Diaspora pr ovided essential money and support for travel to archives in Detroit, Albuquerque, Atlanta, and Cambridge. The staff s of the Detroit Institute of the Arts, the University of New Mexico, the Center for Puppetry Arts, and the Harvard Theatre Collection were surprisingly helpful. Special thanks go to: Melissa Hurt, who provided photographs of inacces sible private -collection marionettes from the Federal Theatre Project, Lawr ence Baranski, who dedicated a portion of an especially busy period in the Detroit Institute of the Arts’s schedule to allow me direct access to its archive, as well as providing electronic copies of a number of collection photographs, and Lawrence Senelick, who not only opened the remarkable collection at his home and provided copies of th e Royal Marionette playbill, but has, in our occasional meetings, provided feedback and contacts that have been instrumental to this work. iii Table of Contents Dedicatio n............................................................................................................................ii Acknowledge ments............................................................................................................iii Table of Contents................................................................................................................iv Chapter I: The Phenomenology of a Puppet.................................................................1 Chapter II: The Royal Marionette s..............................................................................21 The Roots of Blackface Puppetry ..........................................................................21 From America to Englan d.....................................................................................25 The “Celebrated Christ y Minstrels ”......................................................................33 The Marionettes in Performance...........................................................................42 To America............................................................................................................51 Royal Marionettes Galore......................................................................................55 Walter E. Deaves...................................................................................................58 Daniel Meader.......................................................................................................64 Chapter III: David Lano................................................................................................74 The Essence of Blac kness in the World of David Lano........................................74 The Career of David Lano.....................................................................................82 David Lano’s Work ...............................................................................................90 Chapter IV: Paul McPharlin .........................................................................................101 Chapter V: The Majors ...............................................................................................126 Tony Sarg’s Background.....................................................................................127 Sarg and Blackface ..............................................................................................132 The Background of Sue Couch Hastings .............................................................141 The Essence of Puppetry for Sue Hastings ..........................................................144 Remo Bufano: The Local Emcees the Exoti c......................................................154 Forman Brown: Puppets Speak Ou t.....................................................................163 Chapter VI: The Many .................................................................................................175 Chapter VII: The Federal Theatre Project.....................................................................207 Chapter VIII: Conclusion: Phenomenology, Authenticity, Comedy , and Essen ce........234 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................253 iv Chapter I (Introduction): The Phenomenology of a Puppet One of the most surprising, and arguably problematic , puppet traditions in American theatre history is puppet blackface. A great multitude of marionettes and other objects developed after the introduction of William John Bullock and Lambert D’Arc’s full marionette minstrel shows into the United States. So troubling are they that John Bell excluded nearly all of the “minstrels,” “Uncle Toms,” “Jim Crows,” “Sambos,” and “Fridays” from his photographic history, Strings, Hands, and Shadows (2002). 1 As much as a twenty -first century humanist would like to brush these objects under the rug of time, they remain an undeniable part of American puppet -theatre history. This curious invention of mid -nineteenth -century English Punch and Judy shows appeared in American puppet plays for nearly three quarters of a century . An African puppet had been a regular feature of Punch shows since at least the mid -1700s. This character was renamed “Jim Crow” shortly after 1843, the year the Virginia Minstrels first played in England. In 1869, waxworker Lambert D’Arc and entrepren eur William John Bullock formed The Royal Marionettes. Their bill combined the Italian fantocinni (a puppet circus/vaudeville featuring acrobatics, songs, and dances), with a marionette fairytale pantomime
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