The oldest? Perhaps …for this beguiling form of storytelling began long before the start of recorded history.
Primitive people animated rocks, branches, bones and roots as three-dimensional representations of animals and humans. Ancient Greek and Egyptian puppeteers manipulated puppets with “Automata” mechanisms. Quicksilver, water, sand and steam changed the centers of gravity of early Chinese figures. India boasted of the “sutradhara,” or “pullers of strings.” Medieval Church services featured the movement of divine images. The Madonna shed tears.
The art of puppetry has a colorful, international past, both sacred and secular. We do not know who was first in a long line of great puppeteers nor puppetry’s exact place of origin. Countries vie for the honor.
Puppets blossomed in many varieties, then cross-pollinated from one part of the globe to another. Shadow puppets moved from East to West. Hand puppets appeared in Spain and France, rod puppets in Germany. Wandering German puppeteers brought puppets to Russia. Puppet knights-in-armor emerged in Sicily. Shakespeare mentioned puppets two dozen times in his plays.
Popular puppet characters spawned heirs who then spoke other languages. Each country placed its own stamp on the indelible characters. Pulcinella, from Commedia del arte, appeared in France as Polichinelle and in Elizabethan England as Punch. Italian Pinocchio followed in the line of succession.
Stock characters, born in the seventeenth century, live to this day in performance in Europe and the United States. Rough and raucous, sometimes violent Punch and Judy shows feature the Doctor, Hangman, Scaramouche, Constable, Officer, Devil, Crocodile, and Baby. The popular Parisian puppet, Guignol shows concern for daily life and brandishes a stick when someone’s rights are threatened. Naples has its own masked, strutting “Little Chicken.”
The eighteenth century found marionettes and puppets housed in permanent theaters in many great European cities. Parodies of opera and drama plus clever comments on current events were featured. Puppeteers, no strangers to adversity, carried their theaters on their backs when the grand performance halls closed. Puppets were and are the most mobile and transportable of all actors.
Throughout history, vivid yet inexpensive puppet performances brought pleasure to young and old in every strata of society. Goethe and George Sand, among many great artists, wrote puppet plays for performance in their salons. In contrast, puppeteers, “passing their hats” in the world of the streets, performed for the joy of it and for courageous religious and political causes. They and their puppets were both praised and persecuted by the authorities, adored by the masses.
Some of the American twentieth-century puppeteers whose genius lighted up the stages were Bill Baird who earned the title of Master Puppeteer, Burr Tillstrom, who created the improvisational television masterpiece: Kukla, Fran and Ollie, Tony Sarg who mounted marionette productions during the depression and created the first Macy’s Day Parade balloons, Ralph Chesse, who was both a famous puppeteer and movie set designer, Remo Bufano, who was a great showman and used giant puppets, Jim Henson who electrified audiences with the Muppets and other remarkable creations, Frank Oz whose contribution to the Muppets and Star Wars is inestimable and who is also a movie director, and Shari Lewis, a phenomenal puppeteer, ventriloquist and author of children’s books. More can be said of the contributions of each of them, as well as their numerous unnamed colleagues.
Puppetry is a living art. Puppet Theaters abound in the New England area. Puppeteers, then as now, devote their prodigious talents to the art. Puppetry is alive and well.
Many tomes have been written on the complexity of puppetry’s past. More will be written on the excellence and challenge of twenty-first century puppetry. The diversity of modern-day performances is staggering. Old traditional tales told from a “conventional” puppet stage are as new as today. At the same time, puppetry has met and conquered the electronic age and invaded every dramatic arena–including theater, movies, opera and television.
Is puppetry the newest profession, as well? Perhaps…. ever changing, creatively reinvented, the art of puppetry continues to evolve. Today’s performances are fresh, modern, avant-garde! On with the show!
Music | Klint | 
August 24, 2010 5:27 pm | 
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