From: "Bob Frith" <hb-AT-compnet.co.uk>
Subject: PUPT: Re: Thoughts on Avenue Q
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 11:46:59 -0000


This thread has opened up several key issues for me - not least being the
relationship between puppetry and theatre as a generic term.

One take on this is to look at the relationship between puppetry and
childrens play. I think most of us recognise that playing with toys is a
universal characteristic of human behaviour which has much in common with
puppetry, and which, perhaps, accounts for some of the difficulties that
puppeteers have in persuading others that it is not inevitably a childrens
art form.

When very young children play with small toys - trucks, dolls - the
enjoyment or quality of the play doesn't seem to relate to their skill in
the manipulation of their toys. Neither does it appear to relate to the
sophistication of the toy - its detailing, or how cleverly it is built.
Sure, concern with these things comes soon enough - and older children will
often be more concerned with the look of a toy than its inherent
'playability'. Taken to its logical conclusion this process ends in
collecting toys as objects rather than playing with them.

But to get back to my main drift. At its simplest a toy comes to life in
'small world' play. Was it Huizanga who observed his young daughter playing
with a matchstick, and her shriek when it became a witch? A moment so
frightening that he had to intervene and rescue her! This relationship
between young humans and intermediate objects that can represent - well -
anything, is fundamental to both our sense of play and our understanding of
the world we're growing up in.

It seems to me that all theatre develops this process, but to different
degrees. All theatre (and film) continues to use illusion - make up,
effects, stories. It continues to expect a complex psychology of
understanding from the audience, so we both recognise on one level an actor
as an artist (and afterwards comment on his or her performance), but on
another level we quite drop this sophistication and enjoy the exploits of
the character in the story on its own terms. And we do both of these things
simultaneously.

Puppetry is different only because the story telling is undertaken using
intermediate objects, rather than giving primacy to the actor. Of course its
quite possible to combine both forms, and many of us do just that - and the
whole thing becomes more complex still when masks are introduced into the
equation, or we create our narrative without the use of words, or use film.

But that moment - the match becoming a witch - is at the heart of puppetry,
and play. The emotional fission it unleashes is both magical and
irreplaceable. It, ultimately, neither depends on skill or craft, but can
only be reliably replicated when both skill and craft are employed.

Bob Frith
Horse + Bamboo Theatre
www.horseandbamboo.org






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