Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 08:29:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: PUPT: RE: PUPT...puppets and magic


puptcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu

I have been reading emails on PUPTcrit for a little
while now - I'm Chacha and haven't posted anything
here before. I have a tendency to get deeply involved
in my essays and cover topical questions in minute
detail, so be warned::::>

As to the attempt to define what it is about puppet
that makes them so special: I think of puppets as
creatures, other-worldy creatures, who bless us with
their power, charm, cuteness, hilarity, humility and
understanding.

If magic is something that we deeply deeply crave,
puppets have this ability. 

I've been thinking a lot lately about this particular
magic. I'm sure most of us would agree that puppets
are alive. Life, perhaps, extends beyond biological
function. There is this fabulous little book called
"Ghosts Spirits and Hauntings." It is a field guide to
ghosts and spirits. It's a short book and is probably
at your public library. But the author talks about
"energy imprints" as getting left all over our
inhabited world - all over our buildings, stages,
cities, and I would say puppets. People send out this
energy and it is sticky and attaches to our bedrooms,
flies out the windows and fills the atmosphere inside
our theaters.

But I've also been thinking about tradition, esp.
puppetry/mask/commedia/magic tradition. I have not
found any writings on this subject, but do you not
find it fascinating, the cultural relics of the modern
day magician? The wand, the rabbit, the hat...all
vestiges of a pre-Christian spirituality, now have
become elements in the cartoon caricature of a
magician - but I am so intrigued by the history of
this theater I/we know and love. 

It is the folk history of Europe leading, over the
centuries, to a certain type of street theater that,
to me, is very deeply satisfying. The magic! I am
certain that this satisfaction has to do not with my
European "blood ancestry", but with the thouroughly
european origins of my language, of my place in the
American cities and towns I have known my whole
life... Many other people from other regions and
cultures have deeply satisfying experience with their
own cultural expressions, and I find it wonderful to
know that I have a love and adore a magic that I am
not "borrowing" from some far away place as a result
of questionable cultural exportation. This is a huge
and complicated topic with many many layers of
interpretation and understanding...but I do feel that
the magic of mask and puppetry for me (personally) is
spiritual. I am sure many of you have your own
relationship to this, quite different from
my own. 
What has prevented me from realizing this earlier in
my (shortish) life is that there seems to be a
separation of 'theatrical comedy' from the term
'spirituality'. If you look in the books generally
available to our American libraries about almost every
other mask tradition, except for Balinese and maybe
some Native American clowning masks - the writers have
said that these mask traditions are ritualistic and
spiritual (as opposed to Euro-theater). HOWEVER, all
my anthropological studying has misled me (once again)
in my own world. Theater IS spiritual. Perhaps the
Laugh (as well as the tearjerker) - which is not
common to all cultures - is the healing ceremony of
the culturally european. Decadent costumes, musicals,
movies, action...where is the borderline between
entertainment and enlightenment? (I am asking, this is
not a rhetorical question.)

Perhaps my deep desire for magic IS predetermined by
elements of a European culture that is so frequently
taken for granted that the average American can only
point to differences from "us."

If you then take a further look out, as to why live
theater is "not important anymore" (I would say "not
economically viable" instead of "important"), you
might see that it is and always will be supported by
dedicated persons who pour their entirely lives
keeping the tradition alive. That amount passion
itself is rare enough - and to me, in a country that
thinks anyone who talks about spirit-anything is a
crackpot - that we (i.e. many independent theater
producers/puppeteers/etc) are working boundaries that
I do not understand. These boundaries being the
difference between a passionate, inspired person and
someone content with not being inspired, spiritual
etc.

So, while I can see puppeteers and mask performers
breathing animated creatures, making energy imprints
on the stage, relying on gesture as a preferred
language of communication...something beyond human is
brought to life - and perhaps we need (or I need to
find) more ability to put language to the spiritual
origins of physical/gestural theater and the important
developments in this field at major european
historical turning points: the rise of chrisianity in
europe, the beginning of the colonial era, the rise of
science, the industrial revolution...something beyond
studying "period" work (like renaissance puppetry) or
analyses of punch and judy, or obsessing about the
accuracy of commedia characters...but a more thorough
assessment tracing the history of the desire to be
private: to sit at home and watch TV. 
-Why much of euro-culture tends to demand silence in
the theater, while non-euros (and those distancing
themselves from their stuffy upbringings) have some
rowdier movie nights.  
-Some explanation about why some types puppetry can be
deeply embarrassing to different generations.
- Some reason why puppeteers are generally so
passionate about their work, and why this specialty
exists.
- Something to explain how even though there is a
specifically european tradition of puppetry, that
there are still immense similarities and different
means to similar ends among international puppeteers,
and why aspects of nearly all religious have mystical
elements that, upon introduction, gel immediately in
the minds of some puppeteers and become secular food
for artists.

I think of the power of major religious institutions.
I think of artists praying for paying work. I think of
monks, nuns and other people whose sustenance is paid
for by their church, and the work these people do. I
don't know much about the work of these people (having
not grown up in a religious household) but as most
artists have similar goals - healing, enlightenment,
enrichment, education, community - I wonder about
government funding and begging from the rich for
art...I wonder beyond this because if a major religion
has convinced people that the maintence of their souls
can be had as simply (but of course, not limited to)
as obtaining a gym membership (i.e. predictable
workout schedule, clean, organized) what does this
mean for puppeteers? If young artists were as well
paid as young bankers or scientists or the military,
what impact would this have on us?

_______
Chacha Sikes
chacha-AT-chachaville.net
www.chachaville.net/nannette/



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