File puptcrit/puptcrit.0911, message 276


Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:45:54 -0600 (CST)
From: Charles Taylor <cecetaylor-AT-verizon.net>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: [Puptcrit] Michiko Tagawa and Bunraku


HTML VERSION:

Alan Cook wrote:
=E2=80=9CMichiko Tagawa had worked with Takeda Marionettes in Japan, then went on a world tour with Philippe Genty (recorded in his film, "Blue Like an Orange" shown on PBS TV. She later worked and performed with Sid & Marty Krofft at HemisFair in San Antonio TX

That was another opportunity for cultural exchange. The two heads of Takeda also visited Los Angeles, seeing various highlights of our local puppetry including Bob Baker Marionette Theatre, Rene Zendejas, Geniiland. They travelled in my VW Van to some events.=E2=80=9D


Michiko Tagawa and I became very good friends shortly after she, Philippe Genty and  his troupe came to the U.S. Around 1962 or 63,  Michiko and I first met at Vera Leapers house at a puppet guild meeting. We were instant friends that evening.  It came about because John Zweers received a letter from Philippe Genty explaining that Michiko=E2=80=99s car had been blown off a mountain side in Peru by high winds. She fell over eight hundred feet in the car as it tumbled down the cliffs.  She was badly injured breaking her arm.  She was rushed to a hospital in Brazil where the doctors wanted to amputate.  Michiko adamantly refused allowing the operation, thus saving her arm.

I had just done three television shows with Hank Higgins, formerly Hank Rabey.  Our agent was Dick Brill.  I sent a letter to Philippe Genty giving this agent=E2=80=99s name and contact.  It was a period when the Governor of California was disallowing the Vaquero  program of Mexican immigrants to cross the borders. No one could come in from Mexico without a job waiting here for them.  My contact made it possible for not only Philippe Genty and Michiko to enter the U.S. but helped her get medical treatment at U.C.L.A.   Her arm was saved though staff infection had set in.   Richard Adams the theater professor at U.C.L.A. made the arrangements and took Michiko in as a house guest for a few years.

Around 1965 I began building a touring marionette show for South Central Los Angeles.  Michiko would stay in my tiny apartment on week ends and help me build it. I slept on the sofa.  I would drive out to Thousand Oaks where the Adams had moved to pick her up on a Friday evening and take her back Sunday evening.

At the time I was teaching a fourth and fifth grade class.  Japan was one of our courses of study. Michiko was kind enough to come to my school in her kimono and explain Japanese customs to my class.  The class put on a Bunraku puppet show for the rest of the school.

About this same time the Bunraku puppet troupe came to Los Angeles and performed at the Wilshire Elbell Club Theater.  Michiko and I went together. She, interpreting for me and the members of the troupe explained that the head puppeteer was taken to all sorts of sites but the regular puppeteers had been all through the country seeing only the theaters in which they performed and their hotel rooms.  I knew that Betsy Brown had entertained the head puppeteers but not the others.  

I offered to show these gentlemen parts of Los Angeles.  They all wanted to see a typical American department store.  So we picked Macy=E2=80=99s on Wilshire Boulevard.  I could only manage six passengers at a time in my Dodge Dart sedan.  It took me three trips to get them all to Macy=E2=80=99s. Michiko continued as interpreter and kept them together like a mother hen.

The men were most fascinated with kitchen wares and wanted to purchase items to send home to their wives.  One man picked up an item, perhaps a potato peeler or some other mundane object, examined it closely and suddenly in clear English exclaimed, =E2=80=9CUgh, No good, made in Japan!=E2=80=9D He slammed it down.  Everyone laughed.   My how times have changed over the last forty decades. 

I have fond memories of those days and my  friend Michiko.  She enriched my life a great deal.

Charles Taylor
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