Future of Puppetry:
Posted by Tom Bonham on December 15, 2011 at 10:22 pm
Phil Huber commented on an article about the power of the puppet on his FaceBook page. “This is the essence of my job. To create reality where there seems to be only illusion,” he stated.
But it is more than that. The power of the puppet is the power of the puppeteer to take the basic drive of man to create order out of chaos.
I attended a teaching artist workshop a number of years ago and told the leader, I learned more about teaching in a few hours than I ever learned in all my education courses at Saint Louis University. One of her exercises was to look at pictures and see patterns. It is fundamental human nature. That is how we see the Man in the Moon, the face on Mars, images of gods in the constellation, faces on rock outcroppings, the Piasa Bird, etc.
For many years I performed a little dance routine with rod puppet shoes. Hardly puppets, they were children’s shoes that I bought and had stuck a wooden dowel into the heal. There was no other animation, no facial features, just shoes on a stick. The a few years ago it hit me. . . . By the end of the routine, I had the audience assigning different personalities to “shoes on a stick.” That is an amazing power.
This Christmas marks the 39th anniversary of the rod puppet version of my Christmas Fantasy show. (It originated years earlier as a marionette show.) The elf that sings Chim Chim Cherree has a litte chimney sweep broom that is simple an 8 inch wooden dowel with a yarn sweep glued to it. For the past 38 years the broom goes out of control for 10 seconds as a comedy bit. For some reason, this year I wondered what would happen it had a mind of its own for the whole routine. I did it, and it worked. The children went wild over it. They were screaming and laughing over the antics of a wooden dowel with a few pieces of yarn glued to it. That is a fantastic power.
It makes up for doing a puppet show for my kitten. . . . But that is another story.
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Posted by Tom Bonham on February 26, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Where do puppeteers come from? Or, from where to puppeteers come . . . from. Well first the mommy puppeteer and the daddy puppeteer get married. Then they have to love each other very much . . . . and that becomes a sick joke and premise for either the 1891 version of “Spring Awakening” or the 2007 musical remake.
On a more serious note, that is the number one reporter interview question. “How did you start being a puppeteer? Why did you want to become a puppeteer?” The number two question is “Do you make your own puppets?” A number of years ago a puppeteer at a national festival who was also a concert pianist said he was always asked “Do you make your own puppets?” But, he had never been asked “Do you make your own pianos?”
But back to point. WHY? Why does anyone chose a hobby or voacation? I asked my barber once “Why did you become a barber?” There are no barber clubs in high school. The reasons people choose their careers and hobbies seem quite varied. The great Russian puppeteer Sergi Obratsov said that he was a stiff actor in opera. The director told him to get a puppet, have the puppet act and singe the part, then mimic the puppet. Fortunately Obratsov gave up being an opera star. George Latshaw made references to it being therapy for him. Some claims it is the tool of the shy actor, however most actors when interviewed alway seem to be shy and introverted, even if they are not puppeteers.
A few years ago Piers Morgan chided a little cheerleader’s mother as being a stage mother pushing a child. It was clear from the routine that the child walked through trick after trick like a trained pony with no flow. Pier’s mistake was to criticize the mother in front of the child. In years of training assistant puppeteers I have seen trainable assistants, and assistants who are natural. The trainable assistant, you give careful direction and explain every move and they perform as directed, while others instinctively add to the instructions to bring their characters to life.
My brother would sometimes help me. He was the instinctive-type puppeteer. But his heart was not in it. He performed to help me and for the money. He never had any desire to go beyond that. So the instinctive puppeteer does not necessarily become the puppeteer.
A small group of American puppeteers were fortunate one summer to go to Germany and take a “master class” with Albrecht Roser, an exceptional German puppeteer. The class came back and demonstrated what they had learned. They all came back and with one exception did the same thing. (For those of you who have seen the “production” the bathtub scene was not the different one.) They came back trained, but largely uninspired to grow, to take it one step further and be the instinctive puppeteer.
Jerry Halliday performed at two national puppet festivals and was quite bad. Then many years later I heard he was coming to Saint Louis to perform. Knowing the caliber of his performances in the past, I planned on missing it. However, he called me and told me he was performing and asked me to come. for some reason, I felt guilty in not going to see him after he had called me. I was pleasantly surprised, he changed format, found a style, and it was one of the best puppet performances I have seen.
That leads to an interesting question; “What is a puppeteer and What is pupppetry.”
next – What is a puppeteer and What is pupppetry
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Posted by Tom Bonham on October 1, 2010 at 3:19 pm
The World changes.
The other night Jay Leno caught himself dialing when he was making reference to calling someone on the phone.
I remember when growing up going into a neighbor’s garage where they had a wind up Victrola and the 1/4″ thick 78 rpm records. No hundred of those records can be stored and played back on a device no bigger than a pack of paper matches, and about twice as wide.
When my grandmother got married, she and my grandfather put everything they had into a wagon drawn by an ox and built a house out of dirt. . . in Nebraska.
And before that, people lived in caves.
But to backtrack a bit the re-birth of theatre in the middle ages brought back the story-tellers with the little moving statues. While popular tradition says “marionettes” are the little Mary figures used by those story tellers, the mariole (instrument) players who entertained people is probably a source for the word with the instrument player become more synonymous with entertainer.
There is historical literature referencing puppeteers in colonial America but it is not until the 1900′s that most American puppetry seems to have spread.
It was the puppetry pioneers who took puppetry to the pre-television heartland of America: The Steven’s, the Coleman’s, the Cole’s, the Rose’s, the Proctor’s, and many others. And where did they market? The schools. I have attended festivals where accomplished puppeteers fondly remember their inspiration from members of this group. (I saw the Cole’s.)
In pre-television America glimpses of culture and entertainments outside the movie theater (if the town was big enough to have one) were rare. I toured an historic home in New Orleans and a display case had a doll of a 5 year old dressed in her “going to the opera” clothing. Some members of the group marveled a a five year old going to the opera! But, I pointed out that there was no music on demand at the turn of the 1900′s. Going to the opera was a rare chance to hear an orchestra and beautifully trained voices, and costumese, and lights. That would be a grand experience for a five year old.
The world changes.
We have entertainment on demand. Schools are no longer the social and cultural centers they once were. Puppeteers no longer go into schools to inspire children with their artistry.
next – where do puppeteers come from
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Posted by Tom Bonham on September 23, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Tonight I saw Shek, the Musical. I thought it would be a little too juvenile and a kiddie show. (How people can afford $30-60 tickets to bring their children I will never know, although I often have the feeling children at a few shows were with grandparents.) But, back to my point. I was pleasantly surprised except for the farting and belching contest scene, the humor was very adult without being “blue.” It was a good story, well told. I got my money’s worth.
I learned that phrase from the great, legendary, Saint Louis puppeteer Art Pfaff. That was his key to a good puppet show. Way too often the national festivals and to some extent regionals, have the grand exprimental performance. Typically they can be identified by being full stage performances, with lightin cues, usually visible actors with puppets and often actors and puppets both. The result is the audience leaves the show (providing they choose to sit through the whole thing) saying “what was that all about?” or “I think it was about. . . .”
At one national festival the artist said the show was about the inadequacies of the current concept of God. I heard one theatergoer state “I think it was about abortion.” I actually thought that myself during one scene. “It is supposed to make your think!?” Well I am a college graduate with substantially higher than average IQ, and it did make me think. I thought I spent a lot of time and money to attend this festival and it was a waste of my time and money. Money I will continue to earn. Time once spent is gone. It and other shows like it, were a far cry from Art Pfaff’s “A good story well told.”
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