THE PUPPET SHOW
Reviving an Ancient Art
(A puppet
show by Mr Walter Wilkinson is to be held in Manchester
University on Wednesday)
For many years now, it has been the
custom to include the making of a Kasperle (or Punch &
Judy) theatre in the craftwork course of Prussian school
teachers. For Germany, in common with other
Continental countries, is a great believer in puppet
art. Herr Paul Brann, of Munich, who has been
giving performances in England for some months and who
is one of the foremost of Germany's puppeteers, has made
the relation between puppets and music an
extraordinarily intimate one. One of Mozart's
operas, for instance, is performed with the full musical
score. Human singers, of course, provide the
voices, but they are hidden away behind the stage.
So well do the rhythmic movements of the "dolls"
synchronise with the singing, that to the spectator, it
seems as though the puppets themselves are producing the
sounds.
Walter Wilkinson is one of the best
known of British puppet workers. He has walked
over great stretches of England showing his ingenious
"peep show" at schools and inns, on commons and village
greens, in market places and by the wayside, in mansions
and farmhouse kitchens, in theatres and in barns.
His puppets, like the figures of Punch & Judy, are of
the "glove" type. His characters, however, are
much more varied and take part in scenes typical of Old
English Country Life. They can juggle and sing;
they can wrestle and dance. Perhaps among them
all, John Barleycorn is the most beloved. Once
when Mr Wilkinson was crossing the Polish frontier, old
John succeeded in making even the staid Customs
Officials laugh, so comic and telling were his gestures.
Many Types
of Puppets
We have been so much accustomed to
looking on Punch & Judy as our English exponents of
puppet drama, that we are often apt to forget how many
other puppet types there are. True, it is not only
in this country that Punch plays his part in his little
canvas theatre, he is also well known on the Continent
under such names as Pulcinella in Italy, Polichinelle in
France and Kasperle in Germany and Austria. But
besides glove puppets and stringed marionettes, there
are also stick and shadow puppets, each type with its
own characteristic qualities. Shadow puppets have
played their part in Javanese puppet theatres for many
hundreds of years. In china and Japan, they have
long been incorporated into the everyday life of the
people. Shadow "dolls" are often coloured so that
not merely dark shadows fall on the screen, but daintily
tinted and shaded figures also.
Herr Brann is not the only Continental
puppeteer who has recently visited England. Earlier, we
had Vittorio Podreca with his entire "Teatro Dei Piccoli"
brought from Italy. This theatre included as many
as 800 piccoli (or little people) and nearly 1000
costumes. Then there was Richard Teschner, the
Viennese puppet worker, who gave a series of
performances at the time the Austrian Exhibition was
being held in London. His puppets include not only
"human" figures, but beasts and insects also. They
are carved from jade, ivory and ebony. His insects
have jewelled eyes and antennae of platinum or gold.
All these celebrated workers have
characteristic qualities of expression. But here
in England, too, our workers are just as individual and
as highly specialised in their craft. In London
alone today, there are more than half a dozen
puppeteers, and last season, for the first time,
puppeteers were included in the Malvern Festival.
Puppets are indeed rising once more in the hierarchy of
the dramatic world. Malvern is so reminiscent of
Bernard Shaw that it is timely to recall what "GBS" once
said about puppets. He thinks that they "can move
you as only the most experienced living actors can," and
he holds up "wooden actors as instructive object-lessons
to our flesh and blood players." This perhaps is a
rather more modest and moderate expression of opinion
than that of Anatole France, who had "an infinite desire
to see marionettes replace living actors."
We may doubt whether they could ever
do anything of the sort. Still, there is no doubt
that "puppets can move you" with their amazing powers of
impersonation. Their artistic possibilities are
considerable and it is no wonder that they are returning
to favour in England and that our colleges are opening
their doors wide to them.
WG
From
Newspaper cuttings collected by Mrs
Catherine Cobb, a South-Coast Punch & Judy
performer, who was associated with the
Hertfordshire Puppeteers in the 1920s
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