From: FLEXITOON-AT-aol.com
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:23:19 EST
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Puppetry Cliches


Hey John,
You're right! Here is my own personal run in with the NO STRINGS ATTACHED  
gene.
_http://flexitoon.blogspot.com/2009/08/puppeteers-on-parade.html_ 
(http://flexitoon.blogspot.com/2009/08/puppeteers-on-parade.html) 
Craig
 
 
 
 
In a message dated 11/21/2009 11:06:46 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
john.bell-AT-uconn.edu writes:

1.  "You're a puppeteer?  What do you think of Julie Taymor?"  (or "what  
do you think of 'Being John Malkovich,' 'Team America: World Police', or  
another puppet film/event of the moment).


2. A cliche headline for  newspaper articles about puppet theater: "No 
Strings Attached".  I've  seen this headline in articles going back in time to 
the 1950s (in connection  with Frank Ballard), but noticed it repeatedly in 
articles about Bread and  Puppet over the past decades.  Others must have run 
into this.  One  imagines that each time a headline writer comes up with 
the pun, she or he  believes s/he has invented something entirely witty and 
innovative.  This  cliche is odd as well because culturally it assumes the 
dominance of string  marionettes as the norm, when in fact that has not been 
the case since the  1960s at least.

3. In newspaper articles, such as the recent New York  Times review of the 
Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater's "Twelfth Night"  
(http://theater.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/theater/reviews/20night.html?scp=2&sq=marionette&st=cs
e):  
"Orsino emerges from a giant silver ice bucket. Sir Toby Belch and Sir  
Andrew Aguecheek straddle huge liquor bottles. Olivia makes an entrance in a  
loving cup big enough to hold her and a friend. Luckily, all the characters  
are played by eight-inch-tall marionettes; otherwise the set design budget  
would have been a monster."
--In other words, the writer's point of view is  something like "you're not 
going to believe this, but, amazingly enough, these  folks are doing A 
SHAKESPEARE PLAY with PUPPETS!!  Wow!  Look  out!  Has this ever been done 
before?"   If this cliched  approach was applied to opera, you would constantly 
get reviews amazedly  documenting "a SHAKESPEARE play where the actors--hold 
onto your hats!--SING!!  instead of merely talking!!"; or an animated film 
where, "AMAZINGLY ENOUGH, a  human character is represented by--DIGITAL 
INFORMATION!, not flesh-and-blood  actors!!  Whoa!!  Has this ever been done 
before?"   The  very idea of puppetry is still seen as something unknown, 
amazing,  un-analyzed, and undocumented (--which, in the long run might not be so 
bad a  situation).
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