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| The Little Angel Theater |
The borough of Islington in London has a reputation for attracting the funky and hip artist types. All along Upper Street, which connects the two tube stops in Islington—the Angel and the Highbury & Islington stops—there is a plethora of pubs, trendy shops, antique markets, and restaurants featuring ethnic cuisine. Tucked away nearly in the middle of these two stops, just steps away from Upper Street, is a cozy and intimate theatre dedicated to the art of puppetry. Founded by John Wright, the
Little Angel Theatre has been operating in an old temperance hall in Islington since 1961.
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| The Workshop at The Little Angle Theater |
Although the Little Angel Theatre has been served by several Artistic Directors since Wright passed away in 1991, it has always maintained its posture as a puppet theatre. Once mainly a venue for marionettes, today the Little Angel Theatre includes a variety of puppet styles in its productions, and has sought to broaden its audience base by introducing puppet theatre conceived for adult audiences, to a London public that has managed to remain unaware of the growing trend of adult oriented works for puppet theatre.
In October 30
th -November 8
th , 2009, under the leadership of Artistic Director Peter Glanville, the Little Angel Theatre presented the Suspense Festival proclaiming that it was the first puppetry festival across London in over 25 years, with all of the work programmed being exclusively for adult audiences.
On its web pages devoted to the new Festival the Little Angel Theatre announced:
SUSPENSE is exploding the myths that currently surround puppetry in this country, proving that puppets aren’t just for kids. It showcases a diverse range of contemporary work from UK and international practitioners, bringing puppetry to new adult audiences.
… revealing how sophisticated, irrational, grotesque and potent the art form can be. The work programmed for SUSPENSE represents not only the changing landscape of puppetry in the UK but a challenge to the way theatre is made – opening new doors of expressiveness.
The sentiment and goals will be recognizable to puppetry practitioners and scholars here in the US as well. While I was there assisting with a production participating in the Festival, I was able to attend three of the shows and one of the two symposia arranged for this event.
It has been nearly twenty years since I have heard ardent discussions about whether or not puppetry can truly be considered an art form or as a craft. I don’t doubt that the question has been raised in the intervening years, but I had mostly moved away from questioning. As a practitioner I had immersed myself in the doing and the making, and there was no longer any question to me that puppetry was an art form. Yet, many practitioners feel a kind of exclusion from mainstream acceptance and keenly feel the absence of approval lent by puppetry being qualified as an art form. While in the UK at the Suspense Festival I once heard this apprehension expressed by a speaker who referred to it cryptically as “the P question.” Here in the US, there are some artists who work with figures and objects that are reluctant to use the term puppetry to refer to their work. In fact, I have experienced a subtle pigeon-holing myself–that I’m an artist is accepted, yet even amongst other artists who should know better, there is the idea that I am a limited artist who works with a kind of immature art form. With block buster Broadway hits like The Lion King and Avenue Q occurring in a medium that is reserved for mainstream culture and maximum income potential, it seems that puppetry has arrived as an economic art force, but I’m not sure we have had lively discussions about what our art form has to offer that truly sets it apart from any other art form. These were the kinds of dialogues that the Suspense Festival hoped to encourage with its offering of symposia, lectures and workshops organized as part of their presentation of artists and works to the London public.
Penny Francis, co- author of A History of European Puppetry writes in her Animations Online article, What is an artform? :
Does the prevalence of good manipulators and good makers make puppetry an art form? No, because art is transcended craft. The craft of puppetry needs to produce its artists to qualify. ….Art is a transformation of craft, craft in the hands of a genius, coming from nowhere, out of reach of anything that can be taught. He or she trails inspiration and reveals perceptions which make us gasp and see the world afresh. 'Art makes the stone more stony'.
Here the often sore spot; much of the work produced for puppetry is immature, not revealing anything new but making poor visual metaphors of common perceptions and feelings and all too often is executed poorly by inexperienced manipulators. Penny Francis directs us to examine our notions about puppetry directly and unflinchingly. The stringencies that she applies to puppetry rising to Art are bracing and challenging and should create a benchmark for practitioners. While in discussions about puppetry as Art or Craft, practitioners and scholars will need to confront the reality that the field is littered with examples which don’t lift puppetry –either to the level of art or craft. During the Suspense Festival symposium on Puppetry in the UK, this idea was expressed briefly when organizational funding was discussed. Alison Duddle of Horse + Bamboo Theatre, one of two on the panel who still receive organizational funding support, voiced that she often questioned its worth in relation to the responsibilities involved upon receiving it; however she stated such funding must be predicated by “excellence.” A member of the audience asserted that while some puppetry organizations had failed when Arts funding was cut, the work created by these organizations had not been of high merit and there had been no great outcry from the public when they had closed.
During the same symposium Clive Chandler of Puppeteers UK articulated the conflicting concerns of many artists who work with puppetry: the feeling of exclusion due to working with a little appreciated art form versus the relative freedom that working under the radar confers on the practitioner. While he noted that on funding applications there was no box to tick indicating that the proposed work for funding was puppetry, (therefore conferring artistic status implicitly) he also expressed that funding—particularly organizational funding—might perhaps exert controlling influences on the artist. In the US, we experienced a heightened awareness of the possibilities for government control during Jessie Helms’ 1980/90’s culture clashes when he sought to impose restrictions on content in federally funded arts projects and organizations. At the height of these struggles Time magazine snapped a rather sad photo of me sitting next to a Cinderella marionette—looking for all the world like an innocent victim of government intrusion on free artistic expression. The photo appeared next to a 1990 article titled Nation: Is the Government paying for pornography? The impact of this era of public foment led by Jessie Helms has had a lasting impact on arts funding in this country. In the UK puppeteers are now struggling with a new funding structure/application process which seems to resemble our model. As I understand it, this redesign is due to the impending Olympics which have diverted much of the budget that was formerly allotted to fund arts organizations.
Puppetry in the UK was a Symposium that had been targeted to discuss where puppetry was “ …happening most, what are the hotspots, opportunities and trends across the country?” ….to create a puppetry map of the pick of the UK's projects, venues, festivals and new initiatives” (Suspense). Apart from the introduction of panelists who seemed to exemplify that puppetry in the UK was far ranging and who were involved in many old and new initiatives, the discussions focused on the funding crisis and puppetry’s status. These topics have resonance with us here in the US, and I suspect across many other cultures as well. Other symposia and workshops—which I was unable to attend –were: symposium Objects in Performance, and lecture The Life of Paper, To be or not to be: a material—a four day master class with Philippe Genty, a two day workshop in Objects and New Technologies, and a two day workshop in Ephemenral Animation.
Suspense offered no fewer than nineteen works for puppet theatre occurring in six venues located in or near Islington. I was reminded often that many of the companies who were featured in the Festival had achieved some notoriety outside of London, but in their home country, they were largely unknown. Green Ginger is one such company with an International reputation. Their show Rust enjoyed an extended run beyond the Festival dates at the Pleasance Theatre. Rust is described as, “…a fast-moving story of piracy, passion and vinyl. Grotesque puppets, animated sets and shiploads of absurd humour are welded into a dark comic-book vision of low-life on the high seas” (Suspense). This show was visually delicious, and certainly delivered on its promise of absurd humor and comic- book sensibility, but it lacked a clear and coherent story. The presence and interaction of the puppeteers seemed vital, but in the end was a red herring. The consequence, for me, was that I couldn’t maintain interest in following the performance, tuning in for moments when something visually compelling was presented and becoming distracted once I had consumed the image. Still, Rust was a terrific example of puppet manipulation, and design concept and innovation, even if the resonances it hoped to evoke remained a bit murky.
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| A view of the interior of Movingstage's barge theater from the audience seats. |
Movingstage Marionette Company’s production of
Out of the Heart of Darkness based on Joseph Conrad’s novella was also a tremendous effort, yet could not deliver insight into the complex psychological motivations Conrad’s book deals with nor delve deeply into the major themes. Movingstage presented its production on The Puppet Barge, and as in the novella, it began the piece symbolically and literally on the Thames –or just off the Thames—and then transported us to a river in Africa in an instance in which the puppet stage became the deck of a ferry boat. The manipulation of the small, beautifully carved marionettes was meticulous and many of the images were startling and beautiful.As a return to the classical marionette theatre using traditional methods, Movingstage is exemplary. The atmosphere of the barge is further enhanced by the many marionettes from various cultures that Movingstage hangs on the walls of the Barge. With consummate hospitality our hosts generously invited us to squeeze backstage to see their marionette bridge and rail hung with puppets both from
Out of the Heart of Darkness as well as
their current family show at the time
, Brer Rabbit.
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| Movingstage's Brer Rabbit marionettes. |
The last show I was able to attend was
TAMTAM Objektentheatre’s production of
to have or not to have. Here at last I was able to enter into that transcendence of artistry that Penny Francis refers to as a goal. It wasn’t without my own personal reservations: for me there was more animation in the puppeteers than was necessary and I found it distracting. The world created by
Gérard Schiphorst and
Marije van der Sande was so meticulous, detailed and mesmerizing that I had no need of the additional commentary provided by the puppeteer’s performance behind the objects. The story a rather simple one—
In the beginning there was nothing.
And then there was something.
And then everyone wanted to have it.
To be has become to have. (Suspense)
--provided ample imagery and enough plot with an addition of the wonder that is evoked by the found object that becomes character and lives. When I entered into this world, agreeing to suspend my disbelief, I became involved in an internal relationship with the events unfolding before me, which was heightened by the environmental sound score and spare, but meaningful, vocalizations. This was a performance that provided me with an opportunity—by leaving enough room for my own thought—and yet simultaneously, enough detailed information through expert manipulation and characterization—to process and use the artist’s insight. Possessiveness and territoriality isn’t new, but it is interesting and new to see it developed in this other world on these otherworldly creatures; a pair of pliers, a rusty mouse-trap, utility scissor birds and a few other found objects were the cast for the piece. TamTam reminds me what I strive for in creating works for puppet theatre and re-inforces my personal goals as an artist working in the field of puppetry.
In New York City, where I live, Sarah Provost and I have been on a similar track with the Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival. Though not as large as the ambitious Suspense Festival, we too have been seeking to create community amongst our peers in NY, to bring audiences together with emerging as well as established artists, and to provide a venue that will encourage artists to create full length works for puppetry for adult audiences. Without a venue to regularly produce full length works, many artists won’t have an opportunity for the growth in their work that only comes by burning through the fire of creating a work and mounting it for audiences. And, we hope that over time, the Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival will have ignited the impulse to excellence in these emerging artists.
Jane Catherine Shaw has been creating and performing in works for puppet theatre for over 20 years. She has performed in Europe and Asia as well as the US, and has premiered her original work at La Mama ETC in NY. Currently she co-curates the Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival, now in its sixth season at Theater for the New City in New York.
Works Cited
Francis, Penny. 2004 Animations Online, Edition 6 Winter 03/04. What is an artform?. Web. 13 Nov 2009. http://www.puppetcentre.org.uk/animationsonline/aosix/featureartform.htm
Suspense . Web. 13 Nov 2009. http://www.suspensefestival.com
