A READER Gils PRACTICE >a oc _ ae QO. QO. — QO. anya FRANCISChapter 5 Dramaturgy Jn this chapter ‘dramaturgy’ refers to two things: theatre works scripted for ‘and performed by puppets, or by human performers and puppets, and the staged interpretation of those works, the performance-text, The following ‘pages give examples of recent productions that have perceived the potential for puppetry in an idea, a story, a poem, a painting, and have developed the idea successfully and specifically for the genre. Taken all together, an expli- cation, an idea, of what makes for sympathetic subject matter and ‘writing’ should emerge. In this ies the essence of the work: not in the scriptwriting, but in the idea. The terms ‘writer’ and ‘writing’, as explained in the chapter (on puppetry in performance carry a meaning somewhat different from that normally understood in the preparation of a rehearsal text PUPPET PRODUCTION SCRIPTS. ‘The examination of a body of texts or scripts for puppet productions is almost impossible sinwe exsuiples published in English snes 1990 are hard fo ind. There ae a numberof explanations for this, the fist being that a post- production script for puppets consisting only of the show's spoken element Jwill be the bazest bones of the staged performance-text~ 2 skeleton to be Aeshed out by means of the ereative input of an artistic team wishing reproduce the show. ‘Contrast the sitation of the Modernist era, roughly 1890-1925, the period covered by Harold B. Sege in Pinocchio’ Progeny (Segel, 1995), when theatze futists manifested an unprecedented attachment 10 puppets, at the time preferred to actors who were found not only egocentric but incapable of portraying the spiritual and hieratic qualities of their cheracters. Segel’'s book, exclusively concerned with the Modernist playwrights, is a compre hensive review of their plays and music theatre pieces principally intended for puppet play. The themes concer the spiritual, the religious, death and dk forces, magic and madness: then as now all valid vehides for puppets. ‘The authors were of high distinction and included Lorca, Mactertinck, Biichner, Poe, Wyspianski, Jarry, Claudel, Schnitzley,, Ghelderode, Benavente, Valle-Inelan and Capek. Their plays are published, although almost none of the Modernist pieces ean claim fo be part ofthe zepertoire of 9798 PUPPETRY: A READER IN THEATRE PRACTICE a modern company (but most ofthe themes certainly can). tis interesting to note the change in the accessibility of a repertory for puppets between then and now, even though there are good reasons for the charge. Edward Gordon Craig (1872-1966), inventor ofthe notorious, inconsistent and misleading concept of the Uber-marionette, claimed understanding of the exigencies of the genre before anyone else. In an essay written in 1918, and signed by "Tom Foo!” he wrote Perhaps one of the chief distinctions between a Drama for Marionettes [se; he ‘means al kinds of pappet] and a Proper Drama is tis (..] that whereas @ Proper Drama has to be vague and roundabout in its movements, a Marionette Drama hhad always better be direct and rapid and even obvious [...] A Marionette isnot atall clever ~not subtle. He must fit the character like a handifits a glove, or all is ‘undone. Therefore when we make a charactor in one of our Dramas we make the ‘Marionnette to fit it. And so it comes about that a Marionnette does not play a ‘number of parts, he plays only one ... that is himself. This s diferent from the actor who plays many parts and must therefore pretend. The Marionnelte never pretends... (Craig, 1918: 38) Before the second half ofthe twentieth century scripting for puppets was not much different from scripting for the human performer, whom the puppets strove to imitate. They appeared to speak Kines, to dance, and sing arias. Only the ‘trick marionettes’ or fartoecini were sui generis Neither the Modernists nor the ‘popular’ puppeteers, have much in common with the twenty-first century sepertoire which has evolved a diserete language for puppet theatre, searching for suitable and original ideas to exploit its hyper-real potential. Meanwhile the theatre mainstream has adopted puppetry as a genre suited to a ‘visual theatre, altough the label poses problems, seeming to exclude as it does the sound and music components so intrinsic to puppet theatre. Artaud was net the only thinker to prefer the term ‘total theatre Practically speaking we want to bring back the idea of total theatre, where theatre ‘ill recapture from cinema, music-all, the circus and ife ise, those things that ‘always belonged to it. This division between analytical theitre and a world of ovement seems stupid {ous [..] Thus on the one hand we have the magnitude {and scale of a show aimed at the whole anatomy, and on the other an intensive mustering of objects, gestures and signs used in a new spit, The reduced role ‘lven to understanding leads to drastic curtailment ofthe script, while the active Tale given to datk poetic feeling necessitates tangible signs. Words mean litle to the mind; expanded areas and objects speak out. New imagery speaks, even if ‘composed in words. But spatial thundering images replete wih sound also speak, li we become versed in arranging a sufficient interjection of spatial areas furnished with silence and stillness \We expect to stage a show based on these principles, where these clrect active ‘means are wholly used. Therefore such a show, unafraid of explocing the limits of ‘our nervous sensibility, uses rhythm, sound, words, resounding with song, whose