Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 16:11:58 -0400
Subject: Re: PUPT: The role of the puppet



--Boundary_(ID_EydoBmyZk07dkU8iLZkZUQ)

Mary's very interesting analysis makes me think of the great film about the 
Manteo Family's Sicilian marionette performances from New York City.  (I 
believe the film is entitled "Knock on Wood").  In the film you can see how 
the epic poetry texts about Orlando Furioso are read, with great feeling 
and elocutionary skill, by a speaker standing to the side of the stage; 
i.e., not one of the puppet manipulators.  In other words, in this 
tradition (as in Bunraku) the tasks of puppet manipulation and speaking 
text are separated.  The Manteo speaker is thus able to focus full 
attention to the successful recitation of text, which, as in Bunraku 
theater, becomes its own "separate" but also integrally connected part of 
the performance.  Unlike Bunraku theater, however, the Manteo speaker is 
hidden behind stage.

This "separation of elements," and the simultaneous performance of 
separated elements is fundamental to various kinds of puppet theater 
besides Bunraku and Sicilian theater, of course.  It's also a technique 
discovered with great surprise and interest by avant-gardists of the last 
century as well as postmodern theorists.  In other words, the traditions of 
our work in puppet theater involve quite sophisticated aesthetic 
philosophies (but let's not tell anyone).

john bell
great small works

At 10:01 AM 5/20/02 -0700, you wrote:
>"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)

>In all three of these shows, the puppeteers did not
>voice the characters, and in "Odon" everything, including the music was
>pre-recorded.

--Boundary_(ID_EydoBmyZk07dkU8iLZkZUQ)

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