Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2006 11:53:10 -0800
To: puptcrit-AT-lists.driftline.org
From: Bruce Chesse <bchesse-AT-imagina.com>
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] The Two Types of Puppeteers


My how this topic has expanded and flown in every 
which direction  including Harry Partch no less. 
I saw a performance on his instruments by a 
colleague of his years ago at UC Santa Cruz with 
Lou Harrison, the Carter Family and others. It 
was quite remarkable. Lou was a renowned composer 
who in 1928 used to visit my father's marionette 
theaters and went on to compose puppet operas and 
as we all know was influenced in his music by all 
phases of Javanese and Balinese art and music. To 
be a good puppeteer you must be all things, a 
visual and a performing artist and that is what's 
important. As for actors or puppeteers their are 
both bad and good ones depending on their level 
of experience. However, we are forgetting that 
the audience too is a much a part of a 
performance as you the puppeteer. It involves a 
suspension of belief and your performance must be 
such that you carry your audience with you.

I am reminded of a marionette performance I saw 
in Oakland, CA in the 60'  of  The Figuren 
Triangle.
This was a troupe from one of the Benelux 
countries. They did a dark marionette program of 
stories influenced in style and decor by the 
stories of Hyronimous Bosh and the art of the 
Brougels. I was sitting next to my father and 
Harry Burnett of Turnabout Theater Fame in LA (he 
and my father were contemporaries, both pioneers 
in puppet production).

This was and still is one of the greatest 
marionette shows I have ever seen. My father was 
blown away and for him it fulfilled his notion of 
what puppetry should be all about whereas Harry 
couldn't contain himself. He was so disturbed and 
uncomfortable that he got up and left the room 
after the show
condemning it in every way. He declared to all 
that this was not puppetry and it was an insult 
to the craft.

What am I trying to say?  Art is in the eye of 
the beholder. Both my father and Harry were 
considered great puppeteers, meaning men who 
created their shows from the ground up, 
conceiving building  and performing but they were 
as different as night and day. The technology of 
the day was very simplistic.
Harry's puppets were not great art but the total 
shows they produced were clever and unique and 
had content and entertained.

My father was a minimalist when it came to 
manipulation. The artful figure combined with the 
live dialogue, settings and carefully chosen 
music created an illusion that transported you 
into an Elizabethan or 17th century French world 
of language. He was told by colleagues in his 
time that doing Shakespeare and Molliére with 
puppets should be left to actors as it was not a 
vehicle for puppetry.

The puppeteers were his sisters and artists 
living in an around North Beach in San Francisco. 
It was also a place where you could pool your 
resources and feed each other. It was the 
greatest artistic social experiment that ever 
took place in this country. During the WPA period 
you were not supposed to hire professionals. 
Your project  trained people and gave them work. 
If you look up many of the actors who got their 
start in the WPA many were puppeteers first and 
became well know actors afterwards.

Finally each of these puppeteers brought to the 
craft something of excellence unique and separate 
in their own way. What made them equals was their 
passion for what they were trying to do. If you 
want to carry on this conversation  distinguish 
between the creator and the puppeteer or actor 
who is carrying out the ideas of the creator. 
Basil Twist  (from San Francisco originally) is a 
creator who has the vision. The people who carry 
out his ideas are trained and at times it is the 
puppet itself that does the training. It can only 
move the way it is constructed to move. The skill 
is to be found in listening to its dictates.  The 
puppet teaches me what it wants me to do. A 
puppeteer, of note, once took a puppet of mine 
and had it do and speak in ways that it was not 
meant to do. It was one of the most horrifying 
moment for me. I never let him touch a puppet of 
mine again.

Bruce Chessé


>  >Dancers often make great puppeteers.
>>- Andrew
>
>I totally agree. I've met quite a few. The most impressive I've seen at
>puppet movements almost all had dancing backgrounds. They sure know their
>bodies and how to transfer energies.
>
>I wonder if Basil Twist has a dancing background as well?
>When I saw him live last spring with his Stickman, I was hynotised by the
>magic his puppet made! In his case, there was no competition for the
>public's attention. Both puppet and puppeteers were of the same act, a
>seamless union such as I've never seen before or since. More than dance
>partners, they almost seemd like a single being inhabiting two bodies at
>once, if that makes sense.
>I'll always remember the scene near the end where Stickman takes flight
>slowly, the leg of the puppeteer becoming the means to elevation.
>
>
>
>Mathieu René Créaturiste
>Marionnettes, Masques, Etcetera...
>Puppets, Masks, Etcetera...
>SITE officiel:  www.magma.ca/~uubald/
>www.creaturiste.blogspot.com
>www.maskmaking.blogspot.com
>creaturiste-AT-magma.ca
>(514) 274-8027
>
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