PREVIEW
Strings
Attached
Portland plays
host to an important regional
puppetry festival.
BY STEFFEN SILVIS
243-2122 EXT. 343
The Fir Acres Theater and other sites on the campus of Lewis & Clark College, 0615 SW Palatine Hill, 248-0557 or 249-7211.
Friday-Sunday, Aug. 7-9. Call for performance schedule and festival pass prices.
Martin P. Robinson will perform at the Black Box Theater at 2:30 pm Friday, Aug. 7, and 7 pm Saturday, Aug. 8. Individual tickets are $8-$10.
Wierszalin Teatr performs Doctor Felix at the Fir Acres Theater, 7:30 pm Thursday and Friday, Aug. 6 and 7. $8-$10.
In an attempt to pull his mother, George Sand, from her depression over the political situation in France in 1848--and over the lingering loss Sand felt after splitting with Chopin--Maurice Sand began to entertain her with puppet shows at their estate in Nohants. What began as rudimentary glove-puppet acts soon grew into a serious puppetry enterprise; mother and son immersed themselves in the study of puppetry and the commedia dell'arte and created an important theatrical workshop. The Sands' commitment was another milestone in the lowly puppet's journey to prominent art form, a journey that began in Renaissance Italy. England also proved to be fertile ground for puppetry in the Elizabethan and Stuart periods, as evidenced in the importance of puppets in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair (which includes one hilarious episode in which a puppet wins an argument with a Puritan). Itinerant English puppet troupes headed for the Continent, many taking up residence in Germany. (It was these itinerant puppeteers who reintroduced the Germans to their Faust tale via variations on Christopher Marlowe's.) In Germany, puppets would participate in the Romantic Movement, the most important artistic movement since the Renaissance.
Primarily through the work of Kleist, puppets became the shock troops of Romanticism, perfectly illustrating, as Harold B. Segel wrote, the "belief in the cognitive and creative superiority of the unconscious over the conscious, of spontaneity and intuition over reason." Kleist's famous essay, On the Puppet Theater, also became an important text for the next artistic revolution, that of Modernism. His argument for the superiority of the marionette found favor with Gordon Craig, Maurice Maeterlinck and Vsevolod Meyerhold, all of whom based their theatrical theories on the mechanics of puppetry. The popular puppet satires perfected by the Sands became a staple feature of the new cabarets, especially at Krakow's Green Balloon and Paris' famous Chat Noir, where Asian shadow puppets were introduced. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to claim that most of the leading artists engaged in Modernism became, to rob the title of Harold B. Segel's outstanding study on the topic, Pinocchio's Progeny.
The above abstract attempts to set the stage for the Northwest Regional Puppetry Festival's Puppetry on the Edge, which honors the tradition of puppetry as a revolutionary force in art. The three-day festival begins, appropriately, with a history of puppets presented by puppeteer Martin P. Robinson. Best known as the creator of a number of Sesame Street muppets, Robinson will also provide a preview of his new work, Jackstraws, and offer a workshop on performing with puppets on film. Continuing Poland's long mastery of puppetry, the Weirszalin Teatr will present its innovative Doctor Felix, a tale of a village doctor who happens to be Death's grandson.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the festival is the late-night Fringe, which tours the wilder shores of puppetry. Award-winning playwright Mark Levenson will perform his original piece, Fetal Jeopardy, while local troupe Dragonmaker will reprise its audacious The Hunting Lodge. From Scotland, Shona Reppe brings her lone-actor piece, The Milk White Dove and Other Tales. Closer to home, The Other Hand presents an excerpt from last summer's marvelous Whatnot; Life, a Melted Perspective, by Olympia's Magic Mushroom Puppet Troupe, twists and turns with distorted views of the world; and Oregon Shadow Theater has produced an interesting peep show entitled Jacques Cousteau Meets the Creature from the Blue Lagoon, a piece so small that it can be viewed by only two people at a time. Cabaret as a venue for experimentation is explored in Bobbindoctrin's The Nightclub Years. This troupe of Texans tours the country, bringing the art of puppetry to honky-tonks and dives. Il Teatro Calimari, the brainchild of Emmy Award-winning puppeteer Tim Giugni, will stage Something Borrowed, Something Blue, and Something Stolen.
Perhaps the most controversial entry in the Fringe will be Human Sculpture's The Human Marionette. Fusing the ancient and modern, Human Sculpture has pushed the boundaries of theater with its ritualistic piercing and hanging shows. Though not for the fainthearted, Human Sculpture's work is undeniably powerful and thought-provoking. The importance of puppetry in children's theater will not, however, be forsaken. Seattle's Thistle Theater will present its space musical Quest for Planet X, while Oregon Shadow Theater will present its version of Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina.
At each end of an era in art, the puppet stands in the vanguard of change. Puppetry on the Edge may offer us a preview of the next revolution.
originally published July 29, 1998