Raised by Puppets

Well, we were.

The actors and I are all around a certain generation that, generally speaking, experienced two things: 1) Television as babysitter, and 2) lots of shows and movies that involved puppetry.  We could call this The Age of Henson without getting into terrible trouble, but that would also be leaving out some key players from our youth, such as Fred Rogers, Captain Kangaroo and H.R. Pufnstuf.  And it of course goes back farther in television history, to Lamb Chop and the earliest children's television, Howdy Doody.

Maybe it's just me, but the traditional Punch'n'Judy tent even reminds me of those old rolling-cabinet television sets (er, um: vice versa?).  Big thing full of unseen doings, made as portable as possible with a really rather proportionally small viewing area in which the face of the entertainment takes place.  All of this shape descends of course from proscenium staging, hence our proposed set design of a delineated proscenium, as well as archways and masked areas where unseen goings-on go on.  It's a bit ironic that the commedia dell'arte staging could practically be defined by a lack of this framing, by open-air and fourth-wall-destroying address.  Then again, those "households"; defined by what?  Doorways, if nothing else.

The point is, we were raised by puppets, which led us to accept some rather strange tropes and conventions. It's still strange for me to see the Muppet puppeteers below their creations, their arms raised in frozen exultation, and I don't even think twice about being asked to accept that a doll tossed across a screen is actually Gonzo or Grover in flight (dangerous to be blue in Henson's world, it seems).  For that matter, experiencing puppets through a T.V. comes with all those television conventions we take for granted, and make sense of in our subconscious: theme music, cuts, asynchronism, and the camera as character.  Our generation has gone on to create Avenue Q, a musical that emulates the Muppets with adult lifestyles, and exposes the puppeteers as part of the performance.  And even in that show, at one point at least, we're reminded of the camera-as-character when we're granted an overview "shot" of two of the characters in bed.

Found here.

It also means we identify with puppets very immediately, even beyond the usual stuff of simulacra and pareidolia.  This is interesting to me too, because it's pretty specific to the puppets to which we've been exposed, I think.  For example, if you just put a couple of dots on a glove of felt, I'm quick to say, "Hey, neat minimalist puppet."  I'll bond with the little guy, maybe even name him if you don't beat me to it.  But I can look at the gorgeous shadow puppets of the Wayang Kulit for several seconds before I even recognize them as something more than intricate paper art.  I wonder about the uses we can find for both responses.  Will people bond with a puppet before finding out it's not actually a puppet?  "That? No, that's my laundry bag. Puppet's over here..."  Can we also shock people with the discovery that something on stage is actually a puppet, like a pile of cardboard boxes that animate and contribute to an ongoing conversation?

How do you think your early exposure to and relationship with puppets has influenced your responses?  To objects?  To entertainment?  To bearded dudes wearing colorful headbands?

Found here.