From: jon green <puppen-AT-mac.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 11:47:37 -0500
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Teshner puppet flm


I also had the opportunity to see the Teschner puppets last year.   
Personally, I was disappointed in the exhibit.  (I was pretty much  
disappointed in all  the museum exhibits in Eastern Germany and  
Austria.)  It was nice to see Richard Teschner's studio preserved as  
it gave a sense of the puppets in their original environment.   
However, the puppets are crowded into the original display cases; so,  
it is very hard to really see any one puppet well.  There also seems  
to be a very conscious masking of the controls, which is very  
frustrating.  In short it is impossible to get any idea of the  
puppets construction and manipulation.  I certainly hope that they  
are not using the puppets in performance.  That would be highly  
irresponsible curatorship.  Perhaps the flyers were for the books  
available.  I bought four books in the gift shop.  Each one is a  
separate play from the repertoire: Der Drachent=F6ter, Der Basilisk,  
Weihnachtsspiel, und Die Lebens-Uhr.  Clearly, the productions were  
reconstructed in 1998 and photographed for these books.  They are in  
German.  I will have to sit down and translate them over the holiday.  
(Thanks for the motivation!)  There were no videos/DVD available when  
I was there.  Again, very frustrating as there were several Teschner  
films.  I would particularly like to see a good print of the color  
film Der goldene Brunne. Remember, Paul Mcpharlin saw the puppets in  
the 1930s and thought them boring as sin.  The Marienlegende works  
because it is so short, the stately and reserved movements are  
appropriate to the pageantry of the subject, the camera picks up the  
subtile details of movement that might be lost in a theater setting,  
and the camera movement helps to add interest to something that may  
be very static in a stage setting.  One of the Teschner books shows a  
chorus girl who looks quite lively.  She, I would like to see in  
performance.

Jon


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