From: Rolande Duprey <puppetpro-AT-aol.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:58:21 -0400
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Sacred Puppetry


Thanks, Sean!
I see where an audience may derive a certain spiritual "balancing" by  
enjoying Punch.

I've heard others talk about "Punch choosing the player". Konrad  
Fredericks says the old Punchmen always referred to "working" Punch,  
rather than "performing" him. Kon also is in awe of his audience, as I  
am. The faces he sees from the booth are faces from thousands of years  
of humanity, come to witness this story and character older than we  
can know.


"Maybe he's the dwarf god Bes, or the ID monster, or maybe he's an  
escaped comic demon from a shadow puppet play, or some feisty lower  
Roman deity incarnated as a theophanic Maccus or Dossenus....  
thankfully, no one knows, and no one in the audience should even think  
such thoughts... but Punch does have a lot of life and fight in him  
for such a very old fellow."

I love this! It really speaks to the Jungian aspect of performing --
i.e., that we are connected in a "cosmic consciousness", and that  
certain archetypal characters are in "constellations" around us.  
Punch, like the ineffable Trickster, keeps popping up. As do others.

In this way, we (puppeteers) evoke and exorcise (exercise?) the  
archetypes of our world... thus, as you said, all puppetry is sacred...


Rolande






Then, in that cosmic unconscix
On Apr 22, 2008, at 12:24 AM, seankeohane-AT-aol.com wrote:

> Dear Rolande,
>    Well, seeing a good Punch show always lifts up and revitalizes my  
> spirits, and some strong laughs no doubt drive ill humors away.   
> It's a cathartic experience, especially when one feels that children  
> in the audience might receive a burst of creative inspiration that  
> will mature over time, or  simply burst out of them all at once in a  
> guffaw or screech, as if they were possessed....
>
>    In fact, my friend Judd Palmer told me once, appropriately enough  
> over the fruit of the grape, that he thought of Punch as being an  
> elemental spirit that grabs ahold of certain people through the ages  
> and "rides" them like a Voodoo god... which makes me think of Glyn  
> Edwards in the UK, who says that "Punch chooses you," the puppeteer,  
> rather than the other way around. Maybe he's the dwarf god Bes, or  
> the ID monster, or maybe he's an escaped comic demon from a shadow  
> puppet play, or some feisty lower Roman deity incarnated as a  
> theophanic Maccus or Dossenus.... thankfully, no one knows, and no  
> one in the audience should even think such thoughts... but Punch  
> does have a lot of life and fight in him for such a very old fellow.
>
>
>    What a renewal for the soul is a good Punch show, when the priest  
> (or priestess!) steps into that narrow temple and we first hear the  
> gibbering squeak of the oracle, then see the strutting little  
> demigod splutter and bang his way through the ritual of his  
> traditional "show."  There is a divine spark of life, and hopefully  
> of wit, in a good Punch show, even if his pronouncements and works  
> are more like the wet thunderclap of a gaseous Dionysius than a  
> lightning bolt from Zeus.
>
>
>    Remember, too, he used to battle the devil, and often lost, to  
> prove a moral point.  But then some brilliant motion man, most  
> likely in England, thought of having Punch beat the devil.  Now,  
> there are many P&J professors who will say that that shows good  
> overcoming evil, but personally I think it shows freedom of the  
> individual conquering all rules, even morality... the power of the  
> church as a temporal and even spiritual force.  Punch makes the  
> profane sacred in this way... but he's funny, and a natural  
> philosopher, who just happens to have a revolutionary message.
>
>
>
>
>
> Russell Hoban in "Riddley Walker" uses the presentation of a Punch  
> show into an important religious and "teaching" ritual.
>
>
>
>
> The other day, I did a Punch & Judy show for a little girl's First  
> Communion party.  Who knew they had such things?  But in the show,  
> Punch, in order to get a party like that of his own, disguised  
> himself as the little girl who was the guest of honor, even putting  
> on a veil and improvising a "Communion song."  The other puppet  
> characters mistaking Punch for little Samantha in the audience,  
> dressed just as he was, was their favorite bit, and mine!  And it  
> strikes me as a sacred moment, because it made all of us laugh, in  
> communion with each other.
>
>
>
>
> Sean
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rolande Duprey <puppetpro-AT-aol.com>
> To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
> Sent: Sun, 20 Apr 2008 2:47 pm
> Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Sacred Puppetry
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Sean,
> How is Punch and Judy sacred?
>
> Rolande
>
>
>
>
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>
>
>
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