for there is in this crude puppet show a deep and general human
appeal. An earnest and anxious man to whom life has not been over-kind
stakes all in his eagerness and craving for truth. Despite the naïve
superstitions and the childish humor scattered throughout the play the
tragic seeking of a human soul, the struggle between Mephistopheles
and Faust demands our sympathy. In this respect there is more dramatic
intensity and more human interest to the puppet show than one finds in
either Marlowe’s play or even Goethe’s. In the former Faust is pictured
with a desire to _possess_ and we know that he is lost from the
beginning; in Goethe’s drama Faust is consumed with a desire to _live_
and we know throughout that he will be saved by his very struggles. In
the puppet play Faust is finally condemned, but until the very end, by
Mephistopheles’ own admission, he might have been saved.
The play was tremendously popular all over Germany. In 1705 the
puppets got themselves into trouble with the clergy by a performance
brought from Vienna to Berlin where it was announced, _Vita, Geste
e Descesa all’ Inferno del dottore Giovanni Faust_. Because of the
storm of approval aroused by the impious passages in the drama the
performance was finally prohibited in Berlin. But elsewhere productions
of _Faustus_ flourished. In 1746 in Hamburg an amusing announcement
proceeded to allay the fears of timid folk in the following manner:
“History of the Arch-sorcerer Doctor Johannes Fauste. This tragedy
is presented by us, _not_ so fearfully as it has been previously by
others, but so that everyone can behold it with pleasure.”
Half a century later Schutz and Dreher, very successful showmen of
Berlin with a splendidly equipped puppet stage, presented among
numerous old pieces of knightly romance, mythology and biblical
legend, the tragedy of _Faust_. It was acclaimed by high and low.
Then Geisselbrecht, a rival showman of Vienna, strove to outdo this
production and gave an elaborate Faust play with little figures whom
he made lift and cast down their eyes, even cough and spit very
naturally,--a feat which Kasperle was nothing loath to perform over
and over again as we may imagine. It was this very Geisselbrecht who
served as a model for _Pole Poppenspäler_, the delightful little novel
which Theodor Storm has written around the figure of a wandering puppet
showman. Geisselbrecht toured with his puppets and gave performances
all over the country, in Frankfurt among other places. The crowning
significance of his _Faust_ production was the fact that young Goethe,
who was very fond of puppet shows, is supposed to have seen this play
and to have drawn from it the first inspiration for his masterpiece,
_Faust_.
In his childhood Goethe had always manifested great interest in toy
theatres and puppets. At twenty years of age he wrote for his own
amusement, _The Festival of Plundersweilen_, a satire on his audience
of friends and family to be performed by marionettes. Later he
perfected it and produced it on a puppet stage specially erected for
the purpose at Weimar. There also he composed another puppet play to
celebrate the marriage festivities of Princess Amelia. Both of these
dramas are included in his works. In _Wilhelm Meister_ and in the
_Urmeister_ we find many paragraphs devoted to the toy theatre of his
childhood. But more important than this was the contribution of the
little _Puppen_ toward his immortal _Faust_. They not only suggested
the theme but offered models for the treatment of it which Germany’s
great genius was not too proud to follow.[4]
The unprecedented prominence of the Puppenspiel during the seventeenth
century was brought about by the long theological strife between the
clergy and the actors of the legitimate stage. The preachings and
denunciations of Martin Luther had put an end to dramatic church
ceremonies of which there seem to have been many. It went so far that
the ministers refused to administer the sacraments to actors. The
latter protested and appealed, but the people were restrained through
their fear of the Church. Consequently the profession fell into such
disrepute that the number of regular theatres rapidly decreased and
troupes were disbanded, while the humiliated and neglected players were
forced to join puppet companies and read for the marionettes to earn a
living.
It was a great opportunity for the marionettes. After the Thirty Years’
War showmen came into Germany from England, France, Holland, Italy,
even from Spain. To add to the attraction of their productions they
combined with the plays dancers, jugglers, trained bears and similar
offerings. In 1657 in Frankfurt Italian showmen established the first
permanent theatre for puppets. In 1667 a similar theatre was erected
for marionettes in the Juden Markt of Vienna where it remained for
forty years. In Leopoldstadt in the Neu Markt _Pulzinellaspieler_
gave performances in the evenings except Fridays and Saturdays, after
_angelus domini_. Even the Emperor Joseph II is said to have visited
this _Kaspertheater_ in Leopoldstadt.
A curious dramatic medley began to be presented. “At the end of the
seventeenth century,” writes Flögel, “the _Hauptundstaatsactionen_
usurped the place of the real drama.” These were melodramatic plays
with music and pantomime, requiring a large cast composed partly of
mechanical dolls, partly of actors. It was only timidly that the actors
thus ventured to return to the stage in the rôles of virtuous people
(to be sure of the sympathy of the audience). The famous showmen Beck
and Reibehand were noted for these performances, the subjects of which
were martyrdoms of saints, the slaughter in the ancient Roman circuses
and the gory battles of the Middle Ages (in all of which, needless to
say, the puppets performed the parts of the slaughtered and martyred,
as when the ever popular _Santa Dorotea_ was decapitated and applauded
so vigorously that the showman obligingly stepped out, put the head
back on the body and repeated the execution). In 1666 in Lüneberg,
Michael Daniel Treu gave the following _Demonstratioactionum_: “I: the
History of the city of Jerusalem with all incidents and how the city
fell is given naturally with marvellous inventions openly presented in
the theatre; II: of King Lear of England, a matter wherein disobedience
of children against the parent is punished, the obedience rewarded;
III: of Don Baston of Mongrado, strife between love and honor, etc.,
etc.” Then there followed in the list of plays _Alexander de Medici_,
_Sigismundo, tyrannical prince of Poland_, _the Court of Sicily_,
_Titus Andronicus_, _Tarquino_, _Edward of England_ and, of course,
_Doctor Johanni Fausto, Teutsche Comedi_ (to distinguish it from
Marlowe’s tragedy).
When one considers that these plays with all the necessary business
were long and complicated, one may imagine the difficulty of the
art of puppet showmen. Everything connected with the presentation,
the settings, directions and the plays themselves had to be learned
by heart. Young boys generally attached themselves to showmen as
apprentices and observed and studied for years before they were even
allowed to speak parts. These had to be acquired by listening, for
although the owner of the puppets generally had a copy of the play it
was so precious a possession that he guarded it most carefully.
The amazing repertory of the Puppenspiel during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries ranged from myth and history to any event of the
day of intrinsic interest. In 1688 we find the marionette manager,
Weltheim, giving translations of Molière, also the old _Adam and Eve_
followed by a buffoonery called _Jack Pudding in Punch’s Shop_ and the
strange assortment of _Asphalides, King of Arabia_, _The Lapidation of
Naboth_, _The Death of Wallenstein_. Weltheim used students of Jena and
Leipsig to read for his puppets.
When in 1780 Charles XII of Sweden fell dead in the trenches of
Friedrichschall, slain (so popular tradition averred) by an enchanted
bullet, his death was immediately dramatized and produced on the puppet
stage. In 1731 the disgrace of Menschikoff was made into a drama
performed in German by the English puppets of Titus Maas, privileged
comedian of the court of Baden Durlach,--“With permission, etc., etc.,
there will be performed on an entirely new theatre and with good
instrumental music, a Hauptundstaatsaction recently composed and worthy
to be seen, which has for title--The Extraordinary vicissitudes of good
and bad fortune of Alexis Danielowitz, Prince Menzikoff, great favorite
of the Czar of Moscow, Peter I of glorious memory, to-day a real
Belisarius, precipitated from the height of his greatness into the most
profound abyss of misfortune; the whole with Jackpudding, a pieman, a
pastry-cook’s boy and amusing Siberian poachers.” Although Titus Maas
had permission to perform in Berlin his show was quickly stopped for
political reasons.
The undisputed predominance of puppets upon the German stage gradually
subsided in the eighteenth century as Gottsched and Lessing revived
the art of poetry and drama. The actors assumed their own place in
the theatre; the Puppen returned to a more modest sphere. But they
continued to be popular. After Schutz und Dreher in Berlin came Adolf
Glasheimer’s humorous satires of which the hero was _Don Carlos_, with
Kasperle to amuse the children, the whole arrangement conducted in
connection with a _Conditerei_. In 1851 a revival of marionettes in
cultural circles occurred and people streamed to see the clever show in
Kellner’s Hotel at Christmas time. Richter, Freudenberg and Linde were
three other favorite showmen of Berlin.
There had been, indeed, some very exclusive and artistic marionettes
at the castle of Eisenstadt in Hungary. Here Prince Nicholas Joseph
von Esterhazy had his own very elegant stage with dolls exquisitely
perfect and magnificently dressed. He even assembled an orchestra for
them, the leader of which was no other than Joseph Haydn himself. This
great musician did not scorn composing symphonies for the puppets, _The
Toy Symphonies_ and _The Children’s Fair_, both charmingly playful
compositions. He also wrote five operas for these distinguished
marionettes, _Filemon and Baucis_, _Genievre_, _Didone_, _Vendetta_,
_The Witches’ Sabbath_. But it was not his noble patron alone who
influenced Haydn to compose for the puppets. Previously he had become
interested and had written an opera called _The Lame Devil_ for the
burattini of an Italian puppet player, Bernardoni, in Vienna.
The marionettes have likewise attracted genius in other fields. The
Romanticists, Arnim and Brentano, as well as the poets Kerner, Uhland
and Mörike had interested themselves in shadow plays rather than puppet
shows. But Heinrich Kleist wrote a very sympathetic and profound little
essay called _Concerning the Marionette Theatre_. He seeks to discover
the mysterious charm in puppet gesture and he suggests that the great
dramatists must have watched the puppet plays with unusual interest and
that artists of the dance might well learn the art of pantomime from
the little figures.
In Cologne there has been developed a very unique, local puppet show
called the _Kölner Hanneschen Theater_. The originator was Christoph
Winter who invented the characters, established the standing theatre
and remained for fifty years its director. Upon his small stage
there appeared not only Kasperle, but a whole row of funny folk
types, mirroring in their little scenes the bubbling love of living
characteristic of the people they represent. The ingenious showman
had a saying that whatever type of man one had to deal with, give him
the sort of sausage he most enjoys. In accordance with this idea he
provided three shows, one for children, which was amusing but harmless,
one for the usual adult audience, which was more sophisticated, and
one especially suited to the rough Sunday crowd of laboring men who
thronged into the show, which, needless to say, was as vulgar as
possible. Hanneschen, Mariezebill, Neighbor Tünnes and his wife,
the village tailor and a host of others were always introduced and
furthermore any person in the vicinity who had made himself unpopular
was sure to be caricatured. Neither rank nor age was a protection.
Another unvarying principle was the happy ending; even _Romeo and
Juliet_ was altered to comply with the rule.
It is difficult now, perhaps, to think of Munich as it was just before
the war, a joyous center of literature and art. It was, however, in
this happy environment that the puppets rose to the very summit of
their honors and successes. In Munich one may find two charming little
buildings which were erected and maintained solely for the marionettes.
The oldest of these was built for the old showman, fondly called Papa
Schmidt by his devoted public. His career was a long one, terminating
with gratifying appreciation which many another worthy marionettist
has unfortunately failed to receive. It was in 1858 that the actor,
Herr Schmidt, took over a complete little puppet outfit of the retired
General von Heydeck who had been entertaining King Louis and his court
with satirical little puppet parodies. Installing these dolls in a
_Holzbaracke_ he opened a permanent theatre there for which Graf Pocci,
his constant advisor and friend, wrote the first play based upon the
tale of _Prinz Rosenrot und Prinzessin Edelweiss_. Graf Pocci continued
all his life to write little fairy plays for these puppets, over fifty
in all. The subjects were well known fairy tales, Undine, Rapunzel,
Schneewitschen, Der Rattenfänger von Hamlin, Dornröschen, and all the
others. The children loved them and the merry little Kasperle whose
humor, if a bit clumsy, was altogether clean and wholesome. Encouraged
by his initial success, Schmidt went to great expense and pains to
enlarge and elaborate his cast. His daughter, an assiduous helper, was
kept busy dressing the dolls of which there were eventually over a
thousand.
After long years of success, Papa Schmidt experienced some difficulties
due to moving his puppet show and decided to retire. To the honor of
Munich be it said, however, that he was not allowed to do so. The city
magistrates who, as youngsters, had adored the antics of Kasperle,
voted unanimously to build a municipal puppet theatre and to rent it to
old Papa Schmidt for his marionette shows. This was done and in a small
comfortable building situated in one of the parks, with an adequate
auditorium and stage, with space for the seven operators who guide the
wires and manage the complicated mechanism for _transformations and
surprises_, with trained readers to speak the parts behind the scenes,
with choruses and music whenever they were required, the ninety-four
year old showman worked with his dolls until the end of his life,
furnishing happy hours to countless children.
[Illustration: MARIONETTE THEATRE OF MUNICH ARTISTS
_Upper_: Scene from Maurice Maeterlinck’s _The Death of Tintagiles_
_Lower_: Scene from Arthur Schnitzler’s _The Gallant Cassian_
]
The celebrated _Marionette Theatre of Munich Artists_, although
inspired by the example of Papa Schmidt, was founded upon an altogether
different basis and with other aims and ideals. Paul Brann, an author
of local fame, was the instigator of it as well as its director. This
small but elaborate modern theatre was built by Paul Ludwig Troost,
and decorated elegantly but with careful taste, by other artists
interested in the enterprise. The stage itself is equipped with every
possible device useful to any modern theatre. There is a revolving
stage such as that used by Reinhardt, and a complicated electrical
apparatus which can produce the most exquisite lighting effects. The
expensive furniture is often a product of the _Königlichen Porcellan
Manufactur_. The mechanism for operating the figures is very perfect,
the dolls themselves as well as the costumes, scenery, curtains,
programs, etc., are all designed and executed by well known artists
such as Joseph Wackerle and Taschner, Jacob Bradle, Wilhelm Schulz,
Julius Dietz and many others. Indeed the scenic effects produced at
this little marionette theatre have given it the reputation of a model
in modern stagecraft.
The triumphs of these Munich puppets, however, do not depend altogether
on pictorial successes. Upon the miniature stage there are presented
dramas of the best modern poets as well as the older classic plays and
the usual Kasperle comedies. Puppets must remain primitive or they lose
their own peculiar charm, but the primitive quality may be ennobled.
Brann does not in the least detract from the innate simplicity which
the marionettes possess. Indeed, he considers this not a limitation but
a distinguishing trait. However, he has added poetic art to the old
craft and has expanded the sphere of the puppets. He has proven their
poetic possibilities and justified their claim to the consideration
of cultured audiences. The repertory has been specially selected to
suit his particular dolls, somewhat pantomimic, on the whole, with a
great deal of music. Generally the plays deal with incidents unrelated
to everyday life and these marionettes convey their audiences with
unbelievable magic to arcadian lands of dream and wonder. Graf Pocci’s
little Kasperle pieces were not scorned by these artistic marionettes
nor the old Faustspiel, Don Juan and the Prodigal Son, nor the
folk-plays of Hans Sachs. To these were added a rich variety, including
many forgotten operettas of Gluck, Adam, Offenbach, Mozart and others,
Schnitzler’s _Der Brave Cassian_, Maeterlinck’s _Death of Tintagiles_,
and _Sister Beatrice_, and dramas of Hoffmansthal. The popularity of
these puppet productions in Munich, and their success all over the
world, where they have been taken travelling into foreign lands, attest
the worth and value of the interesting experiment. For art, music and
literature a new medium has been discovered, or rather an old one
re-adapted to suit the requirements of the modern poetic drama.
Of recent years the shadow play has not been altogether overlooked in
Munich. In a 1909 issue of the _Hyperion_, Franz Blei, æsthete and
critic, describes two exquisite shadow plays performed in the salon of
Victor Mannheimer. The figures and scenery were the work of a young
architect, Höne; actors read the text, and Dr. Mannheimer directed.
“One thing,” writes Blei, “I believe was clear to all present: that
both of the plays thus presented, unhampered by perspiring, laboring
and painted living actors, appealed more strongly to the inner ear than
they could possibly have done in any other theatre. The author was
allowed to express himself, rather than the actor. The stage setting
and the outlines of the shadows, very delicately cut in accordance
with the essential traits of the characters, presented no more than
a delightful resting place for the eye and the imagination of the
beholder was unrestricted in supplying the features while lingering
on the extreme simplicity of the picture.” Elsewhere too in Germany
one finds appreciation of the possibilities of the shadow play, in its
simplest form as well as in its sophisticated uses.
Exotic and rare are the dainty marionette figures fashioned by Richard
Teschner in Vienna. From a performance of Javanese shadows witnessed
in Munich the artist received the first suggestion for these delicate,
precious creations. The thin, flexible limbs give us the feeling of
the Eastern Wayangs. To this Teschner has gradually added a bit of the
German folk spirit, quite noticeable in his society dramas where the
little dolls resemble comfortable, bourgoisie Germans and only their
fleshlessness reminds us of the Javanese origin. In other plays the
Eastern flavor is purposely maintained. There is, for instance, the
strange magician with the Assyrian headdress, or the enchantress in
gorgeous stiff robes with menacing eyebrows, altogether oriental, and
strange and beautiful. The grotesque and curiously misshapen animal
forms conceived by Teschner remind us of deep-sea monsters similar to
Hauptmann’s Nickelmann and of early Christian conceptions of Infernal
frightfulness to be found in the Witches’ Kitchen of Faustus, or in
the Temptations of St. Anthony. The smoothly finished, carefully
fashioned naked figures have a rather brazen daintiness, permissible
on the puppet stage alone. They offend perhaps at first sight by their
deliberate daring but they possess a certain precise charm, a rather
winning, rather quaint appeal. These precious little marionettes have
been exhibited in private circles only.
[Illustration: MARIONETTES OF RICHARD TESCHNER, VIENNA
[Reproduced from _Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration_]]
In Baden-Baden just before the war a quite remarkable and thriving
puppet show was to be found, belonging to Ivo Pühony. These clever
dolls were carved out of wood and were most adroitly manipulated,
marvellously so, we are told. The repertory of the puppets was very
extensive and ambitious. At the outbreak of the war Ivo Pühony
packed his dolls away in cases and left them in Baden-Baden. In
1914 Ernest Ehlert, actor and manager, and Fräulein E. Weissmann
took the neglected little creatures to Berlin where they performed
with tremendous success. They produced, among other things, _Doctor
Sassafras_, a puppet play by Pocci and no less ambitious a drama than
Goethe’s _Faust_. The latter received a real ovation as a serious,
artistic interpretation of the masterpiece; many witnesses declared the
production more effective than when given upon the larger stage. The
_Frankfürter Zeitung_ contained this description of the performance:
“The drama had a much purer and stronger emotional effect in this
symbolic, miniature presentation with its modest and reliable lighting
effects than is possible in the hard reality of the larger stage. The
circle of the heavenly army shimmering in magic red reminding one of
the pious fantasies of Beato Angelico; the voices of the archangels
sounding from above; the gleam of white light when the voice of the
Lord was heard; the dark chasm leading to the depths of the earth, out
of which the wonderful little figure of Mephistopheles appeared
and then, blinded by the radiance of Divinity, turned aside and
covered himself with his bat’s wing: all this provided a pure artistic
satisfaction which called forth enthusiastic applause.”
Less serious in nature but very remarkable were the famous _Two Dancing
Chinamen_ in the troupe of puppet actors. These agile little dolls,
like figures from a Russian ballet, danced to the music of a phonograph
with perfectly captivating antics. One witness has written: “It is hard
to imagine how perfectly the slightly mechanical tone of the phonograph
combines with the slightly mechanical motion of the figures to give an
expression of what the fashionable philosopher of our day calls the
_élan vital_.” The last heard of Pühony’s puppets was a prospective
trip they were to take to the front for entertaining the soldiers and
the grave problem of whether it would be wise to allow the erstwhile
favorite marionette _Caruso_ to go along, considering that, despite his
power to amuse, he was after all a representative of the enemy.
Less excellent, crude puppet shows have gone wandering from village
to village through Germany and Austria in recent years, but they
have become more and more rare. These shows perform generally in the
little town halls, with the villagers, high and low, crowding in to
see performances of _Faust_ (ever welcome) or Hamlet (with a happy
ending), or, favorite of all, the life and death of the famous brigand
_Schinder Hannes_. The love of the Germans for puppet entertainment is
also constantly expressed in the little private puppet shows and shadow
plays given by or for the children in their homes, usually gotten up
for Christmas or birthday festivities.
* * * * *