From: BiersBlackwood-AT-aol.com
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 22:52:14 EDT
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Punch and Judy ban on Bin Laden
To: puptcrit-driftline.org-AT-lists.driftline.org


The "Mr Witts" involved is most probably Prof. Brent De Witt, an American who 
got into puppetry ran he joined the circus at age 9 (or thereabouts).   I saw 
his show last year in Sarasota, Florida, and it did have a cameo appearance 
by Saddam and, yes, sausages.   

Brent is right about Punch and Judy having a long tradition of topicality.   
Joey the Clown brought sausages into the show at the beginning of the 
nineteenth century, when some unknown puppeteer decided to put a puppet version of 
Joey Grimaldi (and Grimaldi's sausage gags) into the Punch show.   Other real 
people who have become immortalized in the show are the English executioner Jack 
Ketch; the Commedia actor Silvio Fiorillo (who was perhaps the originator of 
the human Pulcinella character); the Grand Turk; song-and-dance man Dan Rice 
(who entered the show in the form of his popular minstrel character); and, of 
course, the Devil, who appeared in puppet shows long before there was a Punch, 
let alone a Judy.   A Punchman in North Carolina has told me that when the 
Devil appears, some parents of a strong Evangelical background have escorted their 
children out before they can be corrupted.

Charlotte Charke had celebrity marionettes in he 1730s, carved to look like 
London wits and political figures, way in advance of "Spitting Image" in the 
1980s.   And today there are Punch inspired shows in which Donald Rumsfeld goes 
toe to toe with Kin Jong Il using nukes instead of slapsticks.   I have seen 
Tony Blair appear in a puppet show.   Anyone who has attended a puppet festival 
in the last few years has surely seen a variety of indignities descend upon 
George W. Bush figures made of wood or papier mache....   In St Paul I saw a 
beautifully carved bin Laden puppet....   If we can't cut our personal boogymen 
down to size in a puppet booth so they're not quite so scary to us, well, 
we're in a sorry state.   It seems the problem in Broadstairs may be that no one 
can agree who the boogyman is anymore.   (There are some locales in Britain 
that still burn an effigy of the Pope on Guy Fawkes Day.)

Oh, I forgot to mention that Andrew Kim and Jesus Christ both appear as glove 
puppets for a very funny metaphysical battle in Andrew's "Vertigo of Sheep."  
 The show could have toured churches, at least until that scene where Jesus 
steals Andrew's hat.

I would prefer seeing Saddam and Osama pop up (literally) just as Brent 
intended. But... puppetry, especially street, or summer beach, puppetry is a 
practical art, and puppeteers in England traditionally had to please a town council 
or passersby or else the puppeteer and the puppeteer's family wouldn't eat.   
Sometimes puppets get re-purposed as a community's tastes change... for 
instance, the fact that Jim Crow puppets don't dance in American puppet shows 
anymore doesn't bother me overmuch.

Sean
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