From: "Dave Riley" <dhell-AT-ozemail.com.au>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 12:25:44 +1000
Subject: PUPT: 4 questions seeking answers.


I've got four questions I'm trying to answer:

1. I'm looking for a design for a Punch & Judy booth which sits on 
the puppeteer -- being supported on his or her shoulders. This is 
totally mobile and -- just like a turtle -- the booth is a 
costume/house that goes wherever the professor goes. Can any 
one help? I guess it can be based on a backpack frame.


2. I make masks (much more than I make puppets) and a 
colleague referred me to a polymer fabric she called Veriform: eg:

"The one I found that works the best for me is a variation on Vari-
form..I think  that's what they call it...It's a thermo plastic that's I 
heat in the micro-wave or even in very hot water.....then place over 
ceramic mask to get the basic eys and nose shape...I really like 
this stuff because it breathes...it is actually a polymer embedded 
fabric....It comes in yards it is 60 inches wide and as many yards 
as I need....I can get about 100 bases from 2 yards....I then add 
extra shapes with plain poster board and re-enforse the poster bord 
with 18 gauge floral  wire and I put it all together with HOT 
GLUE!....."

Unfortunately I cannot locate this material in Australia where I live 
and I was wondering if any list members knew further information 
about it? Veri-form is made in Missouri and is marketed as house 
siding! 

3. I do Punch & Judy shows -- as well as other stuff to do with a 
mask based children's community theatre troupe I run. I want to 
set up a bona fide puppet theatre run by  children as an adjunct to 
our other activities.  I'm thinking glove puppets are the way to 
proceed. My problem is that the business of making puppets is not 
an easy task. It is my norm in my mask work -- to develop the 
story collectively in outline first, then workshop as we make the 
masks. But as we work up the story is there a transitory system I 
can use to represent the puppets?  I need identifiable objects that 
can come and go in the same way as real actors but which for the 
moment don't have set characteristics. That's something the child 
needs to work up.

4. And finally, I am seeking reference material on the mask 
('topeng') and puppet ('wayang') theatre of West Java. This 
fascinates me as the two forms dovetail with one another -- are 
intergrated almost seamlessly in the creative imagination. You see 
I'm trying to develop a mask training system that draws the core 
elements of puppetry and masking together...just like the Javanese 
do. Any suggestions? Japanese puppetry is similarly intergrated 
with mask - Noh -- work, isn't it?

Dave Riley
Brisbane/AUSTRALIA
_______________
THE MASK STUDIO
dhell-AT-ozemail.com.au
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~dhell/mask.htm
PO Box 103 Northgate Qld. Australia 4013
Tel: (07) 3266 4281


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