File puptcrit/puptcrit.0811, message 193


From: Michael Moynihan <mmoynihan-AT-wi.rr.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:54:52 -0600
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Bread Puppet addition


"Puppet theatre, Peter Schumann, says is 'anarchic and untamable by  
nature." Its materials are cheap - paper, rags, and wood scraps. Its  
history is subversive. Its stage is the street.' Schumann has created  
a prophetic, political and religious theatre for our time."

http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/bread_puppet/index.html

I find this tread very interesting and vital for the same reasons I  
had for making and attending live theatre, the thread character=92s  
opinions and the story present conflict, unresolved questions and  
opportunities for learning.

It can, indeed, be painful.

And that is very, very good for puppetry/theatre.

In the second play I was ever in, the one and only high school play I  
did,  I spoke the lines,
"Pain makes man think. Thought makes man wise. Wisdom makes life  
endurable"*

In this thread some are maintaining the late, great Marshall McLuhan's  
explanation that "The Medium is the Message". Theatre/Pupperty IS the  
message. And the message is the puppetry.

And if it is not, then that artist has abandoned the art, their  
talent, their audience and self. Is what is presented is then,  
fundamentally, a lie?

Other's in this thread are maintaining the late, great Marshall  
McLuhan's pun, "The Medium is the Massage". Then, puppetry is the  
massage. The massage relaxes and tricks the audience into a sense that  
everything is all right.

Many on this list seem fine with the sledge hammer messages that often  
are employed by practitioners of so called "Puppet Ministry"

Punch and Judy shows are obvious in their political messages, yet I  
doubt many practitioners are advocate of the anarchy and violent  
methods of the puppet superstar.

We could choose any or every show we have ever done or seen and do the  
political, personal, public, imaginative, intuitive and literal  
message analysis machine. If you do not automatically now do it, I  
recommend it.

My college Theatre professor, the late Dorothy Sainsbury-Steinmetz,  
engrained in me that if as a performer I did not know every possible  
interpretation of every line I uttered on stage, or, as a director,  
the possible interpretation of the entire text, then I better plan on  
being ambushed by critics and audience members whose values, life  
experiences, consciousness differed from my own.

Context and intention can usually address misinterpretation. However a  
rocket scientist, a psychologist and a 19th century cowpoke might all  
visualize something quite different when they hear an actor say =93All  
the world=92s a stage=94.

I=92m just sayin=92
- moynihan

- 
_______________________________________________
List address: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Admin interface: http://lists.puptcrit.org/mailman/listinfo/puptcrit
Archives: http://www.driftline.org

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005