We were intrigued by Ruirui Liu’s post on pi ying xi, shadow puppetry, and we started riffing on the topic of puppets, realizing how many significant and exciting productions we've seen involving puppetry of some kind.
Ruirui wasn't satisfied with the Oxford entry on ‘puppet’. Neither are we. Too limited and limiting.
Here’s another, from Wikipedia (yes, sometimes they do have decent material).
'A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by a puppeteer. It is usually (but by no means always) a depiction of a human character, and is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre. The puppet undergoes a process of transformation through being animated, and is normally manipulated by at least one puppeteer.'
This definition allows for non-human-like, and even non-animal-like representations. Any thing can be used as a puppet. Any thing can be animated, manipulated, given character, made a part of a story: chess pieces (the first photo below is from the show "The Boys of the Paul Street" for youth by Malo pozoriste "Dusko Radovic" from Belgrade, Serbia), tableware (the second image below is from "Hippotheatron" by France's Compagnie Aie Aie Aie), sand, water, paper, vegetables.
Puppetry has political connotations as well, of course. How often do we hear of puppet regimes, of governors or governments governed by others?
One of the things we discussed was the tendency in Western countries and cultures to think of puppetry as a children’s diversion, whereas in the East puppetry has a broader age appeal. Of course, we immediately thought of exceptions to the rule: "Avenue Q"’s racy spoof of "Sesame Street", Jeff Durham’s grown-up stand-up act, Bread and Puppet Theatre, Pierrot Puppet Festival for adults in Bulgaria, popular shows like "The Lion King" and "War Horse", Philippe Genty's "Lands' End" with larger-than-life-sized puppets, and the RSC/Little Angel’s recent production of "Venus and Adonis". All these challenge the common kids-only connotation of puppetry.
Also, in companies and productions such as these, the boundaries between live performers and animated puppets shift. The blurred line begs another question about agency in puppetry and perhaps in performance in general: is there a distinction between animator and animated?
Ruirui wasn't satisfied with the Oxford entry on ‘puppet’. Neither are we. Too limited and limiting.
Here’s another, from Wikipedia (yes, sometimes they do have decent material).
'A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by a puppeteer. It is usually (but by no means always) a depiction of a human character, and is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre. The puppet undergoes a process of transformation through being animated, and is normally manipulated by at least one puppeteer.'
This definition allows for non-human-like, and even non-animal-like representations. Any thing can be used as a puppet. Any thing can be animated, manipulated, given character, made a part of a story: chess pieces (the first photo below is from the show "The Boys of the Paul Street" for youth by Malo pozoriste "Dusko Radovic" from Belgrade, Serbia), tableware (the second image below is from "Hippotheatron" by France's Compagnie Aie Aie Aie), sand, water, paper, vegetables.
Puppetry has political connotations as well, of course. How often do we hear of puppet regimes, of governors or governments governed by others?
One of the things we discussed was the tendency in Western countries and cultures to think of puppetry as a children’s diversion, whereas in the East puppetry has a broader age appeal. Of course, we immediately thought of exceptions to the rule: "Avenue Q"’s racy spoof of "Sesame Street", Jeff Durham’s grown-up stand-up act, Bread and Puppet Theatre, Pierrot Puppet Festival for adults in Bulgaria, popular shows like "The Lion King" and "War Horse", Philippe Genty's "Lands' End" with larger-than-life-sized puppets, and the RSC/Little Angel’s recent production of "Venus and Adonis". All these challenge the common kids-only connotation of puppetry.
Also, in companies and productions such as these, the boundaries between live performers and animated puppets shift. The blurred line begs another question about agency in puppetry and perhaps in performance in general: is there a distinction between animator and animated?
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