Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 10:01:23 -0700
Subject: PUPT: The role of the puppet


Lately I've been doing some research on Bunraku and keep coming across
things similiar to this quote.  "Of the three elements which make up
Bunraku- namely, the chanter, the shamisen accompianment, and the
puppets- I consider the chanter and his narration the most important." 
(Bunraku, by Tsuro Ando p. 4) Which struck me as odd, but as he goes on
I discover that sometimes a chanter will perform with great acclaim
without the puppets, but the puppets never go on without the chanter.  I
was inclined to dismiss this as peculiarly Japanese, but further reading
and some puppet shows I saw this weekend are making me reconsider.

I saw three shows this weekend.  Vietnamese water puppets, "Odon" by
Ping Chong, and the Carter Family's version of Haydn's puppet opera
"Burning House."  In all three of these shows, the puppeteers did not
voice the characters, and in "Odon" everything, including the music was
pre-recorded.

The Vietnamese water puppets and the Carter's show both had a live
orchestra and singers were far more satisfying than "Odon", yet "Odon"
on the face of it is a more polished production.  It is in a Union
theater, has brought talented puppeteers in from across the US, has an
internationally respected director, had a huge design team and was
strangely unsatisfying.  

The Vietnamese water puppets manipulation was, shall we say, unrefined,
there is no plot, but the energy and enthusiasm of the musicians and
"chanters" bridged the gap between the puppets and the audience.

The Carter's show was even more enjoyable but also on a much smaller
scale than Odon.  The Carter's did voice the speaking parts of their
characters, while the professional opera singers did the singing.  I
have never liked the idea of puppet opera, but I was utterly charmed by
the Carter's production and enjoyed it the most of the shows in the
weekend BUT Odon was the show that seemed to take the most artistic
risks.

Why was "Odon" my least favorite?  The one scene in "Odon" which
captivated me had a live actress who spoke her own lines.  I am haunted
by images from that one story.  Was I brought into the scene because of
her, or was the scene truly better?  The director said that he
pre-recorded the puppets lines because it was too hard to find
puppeteers who could act.  I think he might have killed the show because
of that choice.  I think that even if he hired actors and musicians to
sit by the side of the stage and speak for the puppets it would have
been a living show.  One person said that the felt like "the soul of the
show wasn't in the room."

Then too his complaint about puppeteers who can't act brings me to this
passage in my bunraku research. 

"Although in theory the puppet theater requires teamwork involving equal
participation by the chanter, samisen player and the puppet operator,
with rare exceptions the puppet operators have been machanically
dextrous persons rather than intellectual serius artists.  Thus, in
practice, the puppet operators have been on an inferiour artisitic level
when compared with the other two, and although one speaks of the "puppet
theatre," in fact the puppets do not play the most important part in
this art.  Yoshida Tamazo, for all his skill, was a great mechanic
rather than a great handler of the puppets, and he apparently made
almost no attempt to discover the symbolic meaning of the puppets."
(Japanese Music and Drama in the Meiji Era, Komiya Toyotaka, p.148)

I have to admit that when I read this I bristled a little- what does he
mean "inferior artistic level" but- it also points to a complaint that I
often have about some puppetry.  That there is "no attempt to discover
the symbolic meaning of the puppets."  I think that too often we get
caught up in the mechanics of making the figure come to life and that we
sometimes neglect the soul.  

Well- this out to provoke some discussion.  What do you think about my
rambling thoughts?

-- 
Mary Robinette Kowal
Other Hand Productions
http://www.otherhandproductions.com


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