How puppetry art from a distant culture can extend your students’ IN THE SHADOW OF GIANTS reach BY DANIEL MCGUIRE 12 TEACHING THEATRE DANIEL MCGUIRE Then in 1984, while on a youthful walkabout in Java, I stumbled on a shadow puppet performance. I didn’t understand the language then or have a clue as to what was going on—but was captivated. Over nine hours, I surrendered to the flickering shadows, the otherworldly sounds of the gamelan orchestra, the exquisite simplicity of the whole experience; and like many other Westerners since Antonin Artaud, I found myself in a kind of fugue state. I found particular fascination in the icon of the dalang, the puppeteer, who plays all the roles, manip- ulates the puppets, conducts the musicians, and even serves as a spiri- tual figure and moral guide to the Javanese. I later would learn that many dalang also dance and take roles on traditional stages, as well as in cultural oddities like Ludruk, a kind of drag-show burlesque. The dalang struck me as a complete performing artist, displaying a versatil- ity that left the American notion of the “triple threat”—actor-singer- dancer—in the dust. I COME FROM a family of A few years after that trip I finagled a scholarship to the School for Puppeteers in Surakarta, Central Java. More studies followed, and to- day, while I wouldn’t dare call myself a dalang, I do have the ability actors, but never felt destined to share this art form with Westerners. I’ve written widely on the way- ang kulit, as it’s called in Java and Bali, though shadow puppetry takes myself for a life in the theatre. many forms as a popular storytelling phenomenon around the world. (Wayang is an Indonesian word for shadow, and kulit means leather I had stage fright. Thin skin. or parchment, traditional materials for puppet-making.) I’ve performed in rural villages in Java and Bali, and in hipster venues such as PS122, in New York’s East Village. I’ve learned that shadow puppetry rarely I wasn’t the eager-to-please bombs, whatever the setting, however “sophisticated” the audience, however crude the puppetry itself. type. I feared unemployment. And as a workshop leader in schools and universities across the United States, I’ve seen the shyest, most skeptical students transform Most of all, I hated the idea, themselves into fearless theatre artists. Puppetry can do this for your students, too. both as an artist and as a Why puppetry works Most theatre teachers know the frustration of trying to introduce kids person, of always being at to the magic of performance, only to get hung up on the psychological and logistical hurdles that often come with it. Puppetry, shadow pup- the mercy of things beyond petry in particular, is different. Issues like common stage fright, adoles- cent self-consciousness, certain students’ inability or unwillingness to focus on the work at hand—these are all rendered moot by the unique my control. qualities of the form. In a shadow puppet performance, the players are hidden behind a screen. They don’t need to look out on a vast audience if they don’t want to; nor do they sense the audience’s eyes on them. Their charac- ter creations are not themselves, so they don’t feel like they’re being judged. They don’t even need to make eye contact with their fellow actors. If memorization is a problem for some, they can read from scripts on music stands. Most physical limitations, likewise, are easily dealt with. And while those students already inclined to perform might fly fast- er at first, there’s no advantage to being beautiful or cool or “talented” in the way we Broadway-centric Americans tend to define it. “I was always typecast in traditional theatre,” writes Larry Reed, founder of Shadowlight Theatre in San Francisco, who had his own puppetry epiphany years ago in Bali. “The wayang allowed me to play roles At left, the Groucho Marx of shadow puppets, that were never otherwise possible.” Petruk; above, modern waylang kulit puppets with If an illiterate Javanese dalang from a small village can conjure up overhead projector transparencies as scenery. mythic kings and demons using only a cotton screen, some sticks, and TEACHING THEATRE 13 Students show off their shadow puppets at the Chinese Theatre Works in New York City. STEPHEN KAPLIN carved parchment puppets, imagine the puppet figures and enlarging light ex- called himself a “conduit” for charac- possibilities for your own students. tend students’ reach in ways that are both ters that form in the mind, extend up exciting and safe. A small gesture of the through the arm, and are conjured in Living large, on a budget hand becomes a huge movement on the the form of shadows on a screen. He There’s something, too, about the small screen, so it takes extreme care and con- describes a “membrane” that separates scale of a shadow puppet show that centration to create meaningful action. the puppeteer from his character, a keeps kids riveted. I’ve found it surpris- Another selling point for shadow kind of protective force-field made tan- ingly easy to manage a classroom of puppetry as a teaching tool: it’s cheap. gible by whatever surface the shadow elementary-school students—even those Stephen Kaplin of Chinese Theatre is projected upon. That can be an es- labeled as A.D.D. or A.D.H.D. Kids who Works, in New York City, has a partic- pecially liberating concept for teen- have a hard time concentrating on typi- ularly economical system. He uses aged performers, who often feel awk- cal classroom activities will hunker overhead projectors for his perfor- ward and exposed on stage. Earlier I down when they see their little world mances and workshops, which means mentioned my own thin skin, which I being blown up on a big screen, in real that materials—acetate, paper, tape, always considered a temperamental time, for the world to see. Forget about etc.—can come in at under $50 and fit defect for an aspiring actor. With pup- students wandering off during rehearsal; in a suitcase. Overhead-projector pup- petry, though, I can take on a new my big problem is making room for all petry also scales up: the show can be skin. A new body. I can reach distant the kids demanding screen time. rehearsed in a classroom, and then audiences, and find new sources of Students quickly latch on to shadow projected for the entire school in an income, thanks to an ever-expanding puppetry as a “virtual” performance me- auditorium or gymnasium. And when galaxy of digital gadgets and media. dium—a quality they recognize from shadowplay time is over, all the stu- Today’s students can expect, if their favorite role-playing video games, dents’ creations can be saved and they’re lucky, to find lucrative work in action movies, and science fiction. stored in a small space. formats that were unknown just a few (There are plenty of real-life parallels to But for me, the most compelling years ago. We owe it to them to pro- talk about, too, as when scientists use reason to put those sticks in your stu- vide some grounding in virtual-acting sophisticated remote-control technolo- dents’ hands is this: puppetry develops technique. For all the reasons I’ve gies to probe and perform tasks deep in a healthy objectivity in the actor. Reed, talked about, shadow puppetry is an the ocean, earth, or outer space.) The the San Francisco puppeteer, has ideal starting point. 14 TEACHING THEATRE The first lesson: for kids—that puppets are, in many That did more than any briefing paper blow minds, have fun ways, an ideal means of exploring I might write.” I sometimes introduce wayang kulit as adult themes. And I demand they take I mention Howard Gardner’s theory part of a more general workshop on pup- the class and their classmates seriously. of multiple intelligences, and point to petry arts. Here’s how things might go. In the beginning of a typical work- examples from students’ own experi- Let’s say I’ve been invited to a shop with me, the kids wave the pup- ence showing how the best presenta- tenth-grade humanities class where the pets in the air and bang into each other. tions connect with audiences on more students are learning about early ex- That period lasts ten minutes or so, until than one level. For their own early- plorers. I’m there because in this state the kids realize how much more effec- explorer presentations, I ask that the (Illinois, where I was a teaching artist tive they can be with deliberate move- students take aim at least three intelli- for several years), as elsewhere, a unit ments, dramatic pauses, decisive still- gences—auditory, kinesthetic, and vi- on public speaking is part of the re- ness. They begin to apply their fine sual—and offer them five basic com- quired curriculum. I’ve got one week, motor skills, so well honed on those munication/puppetry models to choose about an hour each day, to help these game consoles and computers, to this from in staging their material: kids come up with short, snappy, new challenge. They create a vocabulary 1. Tabletop/sand table. Profession- small-group presentations on their as- of simple, clear gestures, using them in als in the military, law enforcement signed subjects: Leif Ericson, Marco conjunction with text and music.