File puptcrit/puptcrit.0802, message 190


From: Bdfisler-AT-aol.com
Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 22:27:52 EST
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] 19th C marionette minstrel shows


 
To add to Alan's thoughtful comments on a difficult subject: 
 
Professional marionette minstrel shows are primarily an 18th century  
phenomenon, but the influence of the William John Bullock/Lambert D'Arc Royal  
Marionettes continued in amateur and regional production for decades.   Among the 
more notable pieces were those that occurred as part of the  Federal Theatre 
Project's marionette units, such as the Jubilee Singers.   The question as to 
what is truly a representation of the classic minstrel  show (or indeed, what 
should be ... given the sociocultural  consequences of such activity in the 21st 
century) is a complex one, dependent  on looking at the wider field of racial 
and faux-racial  representation. 
 
My dissertation, The Phenomenology of Racialism: Blackface Puppetry in  
American Theatre, 1872-1939 attempts to engage these issues and  catalogs both 
minstrel shows and minstrel show offshoots, as well as the many,  many, many 
puppet productions that show the influence of minstrelsy in the  faux-black 
marionette (or other puppet form) construct.  _https://drum.umd.edu/dspace
/bitstream/1903/2464/1/umi-umd-2332.pdf_ 
(https://drum.umd.edu/dspace/bitstream/1903/2464/1/umi-umd-2332.pdf) 
 
I realize my contribution can only make finding what you are looking for  
even harder, but if you look at some of the documents in the dissertation, you  
may find some leads.  At the very least, it confirms that there are still  
marionette minstrels in existence.  Daniel Meader's are at the DIA and the  FTP 
objects, I'm not sure where they are now, but they are out there.
 
Yours,
Ben
 
In a message dated 2/5/2008 6:25:52 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
alangregorycook-AT-msn.com writes:

To  Christine Klepper at Smithsonian's   Museum of American  History.:

CC: to puptctit--with the hope that others can provide  Christine Klepper 
with more information.

Dear Christine  Klepper,

Steve Abrams forwarded your request for information about  puppet versions of 
minstrel shows, along with his answer.

I think his  excellent response covers what we generally know, but I'd echo 
his suggestion  to read Puppet Theatre in America by Paul McPharlin, since 
McPharlin covers  the complications resulting from the use of the name "Royal" by 
more than one  company.

This was when puppets travelled long routes to reach  audiences. A certain 
amount of ballyhoo went with the territory. That also  occured with standard 
vaudeville acts. P T Barnham was famous for stretching  the truth, but he was not 
the first in entertainment to do so.

Steve  thought I might have some minstrel puppets in my collection of over 
4,000  puppets from around the world, but I can't think of any. The oldest 
American  puppets I have date 1860-1900. Detroit Institute of Arts has some 
wonderful  older pieces preserved by Paul McPharlin. John Bell makes an excellent  
suggestion to contact Latty Baranski at DIA. 

I do have black  marionettes from 1910-30 by Mantell Manikins---A black dance 
couple from 1910  might by a stretch be considered Minstrel figures, but I 
think Len Ayres who  headed the Mantell troupe thought of them as a standard 
dance act which was  common to later vaudeville marionette shows, along wih an 
opera singer, a  piano player, a horserace scene (the Mantell version of which 
included some  black characters along with Sparkplug the horse from the Sunday 
funny  papers).

My impression is that puppet versions of minstrel shows were  more common 
before 1900.

The puppet stage tends to reflect the  prevalent culture at large---one of 
the reasons I love puppetry is that it  encapsulates the world in a smaller 
format.

So in a marionette version  it WOULD try to duplicate the larger minstrel 
show.

When I was a kid in  summer camp, how-to books often had scripts of minstrel 
shows which could be  performed (without puppets) by campers ---but it struck 
me at the time as  old-fashioned and a bit hard to relate to.

Gary Jones, a puppeteer of  African ancestry from Chicago, now in Los 
Angeles, did a show I saw in  Chicago, with a plantation setting. The old white man & 
his wife who owned  the plantation were seated, surrounded by others, to see  
sort of  entertainment by various  black puppets. Some members of the black  
community in Chicago liked it and some did not. Those were touchy times for  
puppeteers, when "political correctness" seemed to change every five minutes.  
At that time, a white puppeteer would not have dreamed of doing such a show.  
In that period, I knew white puppeteers who stopped using black marionettes  
altogether for fear of offending anyone, or else  repainted them white.  
Finally, Sid Krofft in the early 1960s created a miniature Las Vegas type show  for 
grownups with puppets, both black & white, and helped bring political  sanity 
back to the puppet stage.

After leaving Chicago, Gary Jones  abandoned his large shows with several 
puppeteers, for solo turns with his  large rod puppets, most of whom were black 
characters.

You can contact  Gary Jones at Blackstreet Theater, 4619 West Washington 
Blvd., Los Angeles  90016-1727  (213) 936-6091

He could be a helpful source re:  current views of minstrel shows.

He may have a contact for Schroeder  Cherry who used to work with him, who 
also used black puppet characters before  moving into a different field.

I realize this is not a direct  connection with 19th Century puppet minstrel 
shows, but I feel  both  puppeteers could help put the subject into a 
contemporary context.  

ALAN COOK
Curator
Conservatory of Puppetry Arts, Pasadena  CA

www.COPA-puppets.org







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