Subject: RE: [Puptcrit] American puppetry and children
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:58:03 -0400
From: "John Bell" <John_Bell-AT-emerson.edu>
To: <puptcrit-driftline.org-AT-lists.driftline.org>


At the first American puppet conference, in 1936 (which lead to the formation of the P of A), the big hit was Donald Vestal's "Identity: or I am I Because My Little Dog Knows Me," a play by Gertrude Stein.  Clearly, all the important American puppeteers believed that puppetry was not just for kids.  They knew this because of their sense of European puppet history (both popular and avant-garde forms) and also their emerging sense of the importance of puppets in Asian cultures (Chinese shadow theater, Javanese wayang golek, and bunraku especially).
The Little Theater Movement (cf. Ellen Van Volkenburg in Chicago) did understand puppets as not just for kids.  Remo Bufano's work with the Provincetown Playhouse also shows this (he probably built the shadow puppets for Eugene O'Neill's Emperor Jones, and also built puppets for Provincetown Players political shows).  But unlike Europe, the U.S. didn't have native rooted traditions like Punch, Guignol, Petrushka, Kasperl, which traditionally played for adults as well as kids; nor did the U.S. have a strong avant-garde which understood the artistic possibilities of puppets (the European futurists, dadaists, expressionists, constructivists, etc. did understand this).  Despite such examples as the Vestal/Stein play, or Bufano's work in the 20s and 30s, the American avant-garde was mostly focused on actors' theater.
I'll differ from Karen Larsen by saying that in my opinion it was Peter Schumann in the early sixties who first showed American audiences outright that puppets were indeed totally able to deal with the most profound issues of our times.

john bell
great small works

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	puptcrit-driftline.org-bounces-AT-lists.driftline.org [mailto:puptcrit-driftline.org-bounces-AT-lists.driftline.org]  On Behalf Of Katie George
Sent:	Friday, April 29, 2005 12:10 PM
To:	puptcrit-AT-lists.driftline.org
Subject:	[Puptcrit] American puppetry and children

Hello all,

Recently, my rocket scientist fiance, in his earnest efforts to
understand "this puppetry thing", alluded to puppets being for kids.

Heaving a heavy sigh I explained that Americans are unusual in their
belief that puppetry is for children and their slow and recent
discovery that it can be for grown-ups, too.  All over the world
puppetry has conveyed far more adult themes--political commentary,
bawdy humor, ceremonial purposes just to name a few. etc.etc.

Then he asked me "why?"

"Why what?"

"WHY has American puppetry been mostly for kids?"

Hmm.  As usual, I had not given him enough credit.  I'm more of a who,
what, when, and where kind of person.  I had never really thought
about "why".  But I took a few stabs.

Was it because so much of Tony Sarg's work (puppetry and other) was
associated with children and many other American puppeteers took their
cues from him?

Was it because upwardly mobile Americans took many cultural cues from
old monied-Europeans?  (Assuming that wealthy Europeans were watching
Opera and high drama more than they were watching subversive puppet
theatre.)

Was that just what the American market was willing to bear?

Was it because industrialist Americans were busy earning the almighty
dollar and didn't know how to have fun?

Any thoughts?

Katie

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