File puptcrit/puptcrit.0504, message 225


From: Stephen Kaplin <skactw-AT-tiac.net>
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] American puppetry and children
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 23:27:02 -0400
To: puptcrit-driftline.org-AT-lists.driftline.org


This interesting thread seems to be zeroing in on something that has 
been bugging me for some time.

  The lack of adult puppetry during the post war years (late 40's 
through late 60's) seems to me to be related less the quality of work 
of the puppet artists of that time period, and more to what  theatrical 
producers, critics, academics, booking agents and show biz types 
decided puppetry should be. There had been a really thriving adult 
puppetry scene in the 1930's (Think Vagabond Marionettes, Susan 
Hastings, Bil Baird, Remo Bufanno, Paul McPharland, Ralph Chesse, 
Dwiggens  to name just a few of those amazing artists of that 
generation.) What seemed to happen was that after WWII American 
theatrical tastes changed dramatically, as European experimenters, 
(especially  "reds" like Brecht and Piscator) lost out to a different 
kind of text-based  and Method actor-centric theater. Puppetry had no 
place in this kind of dramatic performance style, and so was sidelined 
from serious participation in mainstream, or even avant-garde 
theatrical endeavors.

  When you read old Theater journals and reviews of those decades, you 
see a sharp fall off in quantity and quality of articles written about 
puppetry. It's as if the post-war intellectuals and taste-makers lost 
all interest in them. They weren't hard-nosed or "real" enough for 
those paranoid times I guess. And with no critical exposure, why should 
producers want to produce new adult puppet works? Why would artists 
waste their time creating fantastic new works for audiences that didn't 
exist? And why would any reasonable college theatre department want to 
teach it as part of the basic theater curriculum? Which means that the 
professional level of the craft did perhaps begin to slide by the late 
50's.  All the  "serious" gigs dried up (well except for nightclubs,  
cruise ships,  occasional oddities like "Kumquats", and Bil Baird, of 
course), so artists had to turn more and more towards children's fare 
to survive and keep their companies going. You also see during this 
period a turn away from more elaborate marionette touring productions 
to more portable staging techniques, such as hand -puppets.

The whole vicious cycle was only broken by the cultural cyclone of the 
60's and 70's, when all sorts of submerged and repressed currents 
bubbled up from Western Civ's collective basement. A sudden interest in 
Oriental and non-Western performance also contributed. Hitching a ride 
on that upswell,  puppetry has managed to get back within spitting 
distance of "high" culture once again in recent decades.

  It's still a long, hard  slog. But at least other members of the 
theatrical community don't sneer at you when you mention puppets, nor 
do critics use those "pulling the strings"  cliche so often in 
headlining their reviews. Even Ben Brantley of the New York Times has 
nice things to say about puppets on occassion!

So, onward and upwards, kiddies!

Stephen


On Apr 30, 2005, at 4:30 PM, Andrew Young wrote:

> Christopher Hudert wrote:
>
>> Some crucial facts seem to be being ignored here. (And I don't mean 
>> just with Deborah's post.) What was the stuff on the Ed Sullivan 
>> Show, Johnny Carson, etc if not presented for adult audiences?
>
> That's an excellent point Christopher. I also agree with your point 
> about there not really being a line between puppetry for adults and 
> children. I personally don't believe there is a legitimate 
> misconception among adults that puppetry is for kids; I think that's 
> an invention of the media (more on that in a sec) and I think it 
> started with Sesame Street.
>
> While it's certainly true there were puppet shows for children like 
> Howdy Doody prior to Sesame, most of the puppet characters in popular 
> media like the pre-Sesame Muppets, Charlie McCarthy, Topo Gigo and 
> Uncle Chichimus were aimed at general audiences. Even Lambchop, who 
> was originally created to entertain children, played Vegas for years. 
> The Muppets are held up as the gold standard for children's puppetry, 
> but most of Jim Henson's work is incredibly sophisticated and 
> remarkably subversive.
>
> When Sesame Street made such a huge impression what I think changed 
> wasn't so much the adult audience's willingness to watch puppetry, 
> just the media's perception of how puppets were used. I'm sure this 
> perception existed prior to 1969, but I think it was the enormous 
> success of Sesame Street that cemented it. Mass media makes these neat 
> little assumptions ("puppets are for kids!") and repeats them over and 
> over again until people believe that they are true and suddenly 
> puppetry's been ghettoized as child's play.
>
> Another thing that I think feeds this misconception (or rather the 
> perception that there is a misconception) is that you don't see much 
> puppetry for adult audiences in mass media. Most of the good puppetry 
> intended for adults is done in the theatre and most stage puppetry 
> just doesn't translate that well to television. I don't think Avenue Q 
> or Lion King or most of Basil Twist's work would have nearly the same 
> impact if it was filmed and put on HBO.
>
> I'm always surprised by how many adults that I meet love puppetry. I 
> was at a party a friend of mine threw recently and there was a real 
> range of people in attendance - students, nurses, admin people, 
> engineers. It was a pretty diverse group and I didn't know any of 
> them. As I went around the room I was inevitably introduced as "the 
> puppet guy" and person after person was fascinated and/or excited by 
> this and made a point of telling me how much they loved the Muppet 
> Show, or puppet acts on Ed Sullivan or a busker they've seen doing 
> puppets somewhere. It was a very informative experience.
>
> I think there has always been an appetite for sophisticated puppetry 
> out there, the problem has just been awareness. As others have pointed 
> out, the Henson Foundation, UNIMA and PofA have helped with that 
> enormously.
>
> -- 
> Andrew
>
> The PuppetVision Blog
> "Retro-style puppet film and video goodness, delivered fresh to your 
> computer each day."
> http://puppetvision.blogspot.com
>
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>
>
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