Believe in Make-Believe

  
 

          Puppetry combines choreography, acting, music, storytelling, scriptwriting, lighting, sound, costume and scenic design and should be taken seriously as an art form. This is not to say that Puppet Theater is a hodgepodge or subcategory of these (Twist). A lot goes into these shows where wooden headed gloves jump about with dolls attached to strings. Such shows have always been a huge hit with children, yet not so much with adults. Is it due to an inhibition in the mature audience member to believe? It is nothing short of magic when you are able to believe that an inanimate object comes to life (Twist). Perhaps Daniel Grzywacz hit the old proverbial nail on the head in the when he remarked, “It’s simply much more difficult to make adults forget there is a hand in the puppet long enough for them to enjoy the narrative (Grzywacz).

          A few puppeteers who have broken through the adult acceptance barrier would be Jim Henson and Julie Taymor. The Henson Foundation, which sponsors the International Festival of Puppet Theater in New York, was formed in order to promote puppetry in the United States (Wren). Taymor’s colossal success with The Lion King brought puppet theater mainstream recognition (Horwitz). This is not to say serious works with puppets did not exist before. In 1958, George Latshaw, the dean of American puppetry, worked with the Detroit Symphony in a collaboration of Aaron Copland’s ballet Billy the Kid (Fox). Mr. Latshaw also created a great deal of children’s theater.  “You get a repertory of folk and fairy tales and it’ll last you an entire career, whereas if you’re talking to adults, first, you have to have something to say and then you have to get them to sit still long enough so that you can say it effectively (Fox).



The author as the title character in
Wilbur Whippersnapper's Holiday Special, Philadelphia, 1996.

                The adult audience was always kept in mind as scripts were being written in preparation for my own puppet shows which were performed in libraries and at festivals. Certainly, the vast majority of my audience would be children.  However, it was something of a personal challenge to tap the inner child of my older patrons. Not wanting to let the grown-ups miss out on the fun, their attention would be gently coaxed by occasional witticisms aimed just over the heads of the kids. By the end of the show, everyone in the audience believed in the world created by the puppet actors. For the show to be engaging, a good script and special effects are all well and good.

                With puppetry, a bit more has to come from the viewer. Once the person in the audience stops trying to figure out how the actors are manipulated, “there comes a moment when suddenly the puppet takes on a life of its own. It can be a movement, an expression, or perhaps a turn of the head when the puppet is transformed from an object unto a being, when it becomes endowed with life. From this moment on, the puppet stage becomes a place of magic, a place where anything can happen” (Engdahl). Even when I perform in full view of people, there comes an instant of change when the puppeteer becomes invisible and the puppet is a real entity. It would be cheeky of me to assume it was all do to talent, when I know with all of my being that the bit of wood and felt on my hand was granted legitimacy as a being with a soul.

Works Cited

     Engdahl, Eric. "Face a Face." Theatre Journal 46.2 (1994): 257+. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 28 Oct. 2013. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA15263653&v =2.1&u=colu91149&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w&asid=ee66c536c97d57f258fb8358793ccb20

Fox, Margalit. "Title: George Latshaw, 83, Dies; Made Puppetry Into an Art." The New York Times 24 Dec. 2006: 27. Academic OneFile. Web. 17 Oct. 2013. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=DA-SORT&inPS=true&prodId=AONE&userGroupName=colu91149&tabID=T004&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=Advan>.

Grzywacz, Daniel. "Puppet Show Enchants All Audiences." Daily Trojan 25 Jan. 2012 [California] . Web. 28 Oct. 2013.< http://dailytrojan.com/2012/01/25/puppet-show-enchants-all-audiences/>.

Horwitz, Simi. "Puppets Abound on Local Stages: A New Aesthetic?" Back Stage 44.47 (21 Nov. 2003): 3-4. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 290. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 27 Oct. 2013.

Twist, Basil. "The thing happens: a third-generation puppeteer aims to create the puppetry equivalent of abstract painting." American Theatre Feb. 2004: 34+. Academic OneFile. Web. 27 Oct. 2013. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA113458828&v=2.1&u=colu91149&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=d48bd6523214652bdee73916d72570f6

Wren, Celia. "Awash in puppeteers: Henson festival & 'Symphonie Fantastique.' (Jim Henson Foundation's International Festival of Puppet Theater; stunning off-Broadway abstract puppet festival)(Column)." Commonweal 125.17 (1998): 16+. Academic OneFile. Web. 28 Oct. 2013. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA21227664&v=2.1&u=colu91149&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=01e6eb2d3be8247b71d88671034d9096

For reading to the end, a treat for you!

Today's puppet song.



Author as Micah the Maccabee for Hanukkah in Philadelphia, 2005.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpQI5mznEA4