For Adults Only

 

 

For Adults Only

 

 

            A theatrical show that publicizes it is “for adults only” will cause one to conjure up images of raunchy, salacious acts of the seamier side. A case in point is the 2003 Tony Award winning musical Avenue Q. Along with the musical numbers and satire was a scene of sexual hijinks between two of the puppet actors. Not that all or even most of the puppetry offered as entertainment for an adult audience is risqué. There is, however, a burgeoning scene of short-form puppetry that finds its roots more in burlesque than in vaudeville.

 

            Allow me to present, the Puppet Slam. What began as a casual gathering of puppeteers after the annual Puppeteers of America Festival has grown into an international happening (Puppet Slam Network). The Puppet Slam Network, a website launched by IBEX Puppetry, works towards connecting, supporting, and raising awareness for the Puppet Slam Nation (Puppet Slam Network). There are over seventy puppet slams in North America, Europe and Australia performing for adult audiences in small venues usually late at night. Right here in the Baltimore area we have Puppet Slamwich presented by Black Cherry Puppet Theater, the Puppet Co., and Puppet Underground Cabaret in D.C. who combine their entertainment efforts with local grassroots organizing efforts (Puppet Underground).

            During a telephone interview with Christian from the Puppet Co., I was amazed to find out just how successful puppet slams are. “Our theater is small. We only have one hundred seats, but we sold out for both of our last two puppet slam performances.” After revealing the theme of my blog project to Christian, he shared that the puppet slam was originated by Eric Brooks for reasons similar to my blog argument: the need for outreach to an adult audience for puppetry. “We also use it as exposure for our children’s shows.”

 

            Having attended puppet slams in Philadelphia, I am a bit skeptical as to the ability of this form of theater to maintain a high level of attracting audiences. During one of the shows I attended, the artist used a chair as a puppet and the only manipulation of it was to drag it about the stage. Perhaps it was too avant-garde for me.  Perhaps I should be more inclusive of artists coming from different backgrounds.  My concerns were mirrored in an article by Marcia Biederman for The New York Times. She wondered if the avant-garde artists using puppets in their work can continue to share the stage with traditional children’s entertainers. In their attempt to gain legitimacy, a few avant-garde artists seem to give their artistic expressions more weight while putting down the kids’ stuff.  Biederman quotes Jim Bowen of Puppetworks in New York as saying, “Some of the avant-garde stuff tends to get really self-indulgent.” He continues, “Children would never let you get away with that” (Biederman).

King Kong at the Regent Theatre in Melbourne, Australia.
http://jimsmash.blogspot.com/2013/07/king-kong-puppet.html

 

            Fighting within families is not uncommon. As long as all of the varied forms of puppetry lead to increased appreciation by adults and children alike, the future seems bright. From the busker performing on the street to the latest sensation on stage, puppetry is consistently reaching out to that elusive adult audience.

 

 

Works Cited

 

            Biederman, Marcia. “Make Way For Grown-Ups.” New York Times 24 Jan. 1999. Academic OneFile. Web. 17 Oct. 31, 2013. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id= GALE%7CA150050785&v=2.1&u=colu91149&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=d19150ccfb898fdde46b339bdd438b09

            Puppet Slam Network. Awesome, Inc., 3 Aug. 2012. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. <http://puppetslam.blogspot.com/2012/08/history-of-puppet-slam-network.html>.

            Puppet Underground. N.p., 11 June 2013. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. <http://puppetunderground.blogspot.com/>.

As a treat for having read this far along . . .

today's puppet song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fXnM5_TFGc

 

 

 

 



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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The World on a String

Bunraku puppets from Japan.

           
          Take a moment to close your eyes and think of the word “puppet”. Did Ernie and Bert or Cookie Monster pop immediately into your head? Did the characters Tokubi and Ohatsu, Mahabarat, or Punch and Judy come to mind? More than likely you thought of the stars of Sesame Street or the Muppets. I am arguing that, “The popular perception of puppetry today is of Disneyesque entertainment for children, akin to animation. We don't always remember its layered history as a sacred ritual, and sophisticated art form: China's pi ying xi, Java's Wayang, Japan's Bunraku, or bommalattam back home” (“When puppets came alive”).

 

Puppets from the author's personal collection:
Wayang Golek rod puppet upon his horse from West Java (left),
two Pi Ying Xi shadow puppets from China (center)
and a Kathputli string puppet from India (right).

             My theory was later confirmed by Jacqueline Marks, CFO of The International Puppetry Museum (IPM) in Pasadena, California. When I asked her if puppetry is appreciated around the world by a larger adult audience more so than it is in the United States she responded with, “You are correct! International puppetry is much more sophisticated” (Marks). Has this always been the case? Is this peculiar to American audiences?



German-born master puppeteer Bernd Ogrodnik of Iceland
with his hand-carved marionettes.

             Twenty years ago, I stood backstage with master puppeteer Bernd Ogrodnik after one of his awe inspiring shows. He shared something with me that turned out to be the seed for this essay. He said, "I performed this same show in Germany to an audience of five hundred people. In the United States I only attract twenty and mostly children." At the time, I had only ever performed in front of not more than fifty people. I found it to be remarkable that puppetry could reach such a large gathering.




Children at a Parisian puppet theatre, 1963.

          While puppet plays are somewhat foreign to American adult audiences the puppet shows they do see, they tend to think of as purely children's entertainment. “Puppetry tends to get relegated to the children’s department somewhere downstairs in the back of the library” Wayne Kefting, president of Puppeteers of America. “It really isn’t a kiddie show, but it’s a real theatrical art” (Fox). Bart P. Roccoberton, director of the Institute of Professional Puppetry Arts at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center concurs, "Puppetry is not just for children.” He adds, “In other countries, people have a better sense of what puppetry can do" (quoted in Battista). I will examine this dichotomy and illuminate how puppetry is a true art form.

 

 

Reference

Battista, Carolyn. "PUPPETS ARE NOT JUST FOR CHILDREN ANYMORE." New York Times 17 Mar. 1985. Academic OneFile. Web. 20 Oct. 2013.

Document URL
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA176601017&v=2.1&u=colu91149&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=1d8904044f9e2f4ad4fe27c8880bb978

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

Document URL

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>.

Marks, Jacqueline. “Puppetry Question(s).” Glenn Lash. Email. 20 October, 2013.

"When puppets came alive." The Hindu [English] 2 Oct. 2010. Academic OneFile. Web. 20 Oct. 2013.

Document URL
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA238513725&v=2.1&u=colu91149&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=e07098a266a584656b021e3d41605a93



Author as Sir Reginald Tickleton III 1/2.

Inaugural Blog

And here we go . . . .

As I become comfortable in my new world of studies and my new role as student, I am still surrounded by remnants of my former selves.

 

 This is a pencil self-portrait. I did this when I was an Illustration major

at the Philadelphia College of Art. It is filled with meaning.

 

 Just a few of the puppets from my collection. These are by Gund and from the 1950's.

Perhaps I'll devote a post to my collection.

 

 

 All together now: "Here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail . . . ."

Here I am as Skippy Rabbit leading the Easter Parade in Chestnut Hill, PA.

 

I have also designed stained glass windows for churches. Working for Willets Stained Glass Studio was my best illustration job. I worked for them as a freelance artist for about two years.