representing the Great Serpent, an important supernatural personage in
the legends of the Hopi Indians, are somehow associated with the Hopi
version of a flood; for it was said that when the ancestors of certain
clans lived far south this monster once rose through the middle of the
pueblo plaza, drawing after him a great flood which submerged the land
and which obliged the Hopi to migrate into his present home, farther
North. The snake effigies knocking over the cornfields symbolize
floods, possible winds which the Serpent brings. The figurines of the
Corn Maids represent the mythical maidens whose beneficent gift of corn
and other seeds, in ancient times, is a constant theme in Hopi legends.
The effigies which Dr. Fewkes saw used were not very ancient, but in
olden times similar effigies existed and were kept in stone enclosures
outside the pueblos. The house of the _Ancient Plumed Snake of Hano_ is
in a small cave in the side of a mesa near the ruins of Turkinobi where
several broken serpent heads and effigy ribs (or wooden hoops) can now
be seen, although the entrance is walled up and rarely used.
The puppet shows commonly seen to-day in the United States are of
foreign extraction or at least inspired by foreign models. For many
years there have been puppet-plays throughout the country. Visiting
exhibitions like those of Holden’s marionettes which Professor Brander
Matthews praises so glowingly are, naturally, rare. But one hears of
many puppets in days past that have left their impression upon the
childhood memories of our elders, travelling as far South as Savannah
or wandering through the New England states. Our vaudevilles and
sideshows and galleries often have exhibits of mechanical dolls, such
as the amazing feats of _Mantell’s Marionette Hippodrome Fairy-land
Transformation_ which advertises “Big scenic novelty, seventeen
gorgeous drop curtains, forty-five elegant talking acting figures in
a comical pantomime,” or _Madam Jewel’s Manikins_ in Keith’s Circuit,
Madam Jewel being an aunt of Holden, they say, and guarding zealously
with canvas screens the secret of her devices, even as Holden himself
is said to have done.
Interesting, too, is the story of the retired marionettist, Harry
Deaves, who writes: “I have on hand forty to fifty marionette figures,
all in fine shape and dressed. I have been in the manikin business
forty-five years, played all the large cities from coast to coast,
over and over, always with big success; twenty-eight weeks in Chicago
without a break with Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a big hit. The reason I am
selling my outfit is,--I am over sixty years of age and I don’t think
I will work it again.” How one wishes one might have seen that _Uncle
Tom’s Cabin_ in Chicago! In New York at present there is Remo Buffano,
reviving interest in the puppets by giving performances now and then in
a semi-professional way with large, simple dolls resembling somewhat
the Sicilian burattini. His are plays of adventure and fairy lore.
Then, too, in most of our larger cities from time to time crude popular
shows from abroad are to be found around the foreign neighborhoods. It
is said that at one time in Chicago there were Turkish shadow plays in
the Greek Colony; Punch and Judy make their appearance at intervals,
and Italian or Sicilian showmen frequently give dramatic versions of
the legends of Charlemagne.
In Cleveland two years ago a party of inquisitive folk went one night
to the Italian neighborhood in search of such a performance. We found
and entered a dark little hall where the rows of seats were crowded
closely together and packed with a spellbound audience of Italian
workingmen and boys. Squeezing into our places with as little commotion
as possible we settled down to succumb to the spell of the crude
foreign fantoccini, large and completely armed, who were violently
whacking and slashing each other before a rather tattered drop curtain.
Interpreted into incorrect English by a small boy glued to my side,
broken bits of the resounding tale of _Orlando Furioso_ were hissed
into my ear. But for these slangy ejaculations one might well have
been in the heart of Palermo. A similar performance is described by
Mr. Arthur Gleason. It was a show in New York, the master of which was
Salvatore Cascio, and he was assisted by Maria Grasso, daughter of the
Sicilian actor, Giovanni Grasso of Catania.
[Illustration: ITALIAN MARIONETTE SHOW Operated in Cleveland for a
season. Proprietor, Joseph Scionte [Courtesy of Cleveland _Plain
Dealer_]]
“For two hours every evening for fifty evenings the legends unrolled
themselves, princes of the blood and ugly unbelievers perpetually
warring.” There was, explains Mr. Gleason, some splendid fighting.
“Christians and Saracens generally proceeded to quarrel at close
range with short stabbing motions at the opponent’s face and lungs.
After three minutes they swing back and then clash!! sword shivers
on shield!! Three times they clash horridly, three times retire to
the wings, at last the Christian beats down his foe; the pianist
meanwhile is playing violent ragtime during the fight, five hidden
manipulators are stamping on the platform above, the cluttered dead are
heaped high on the stage.” When one considers that such puppets are
generally about three feet high and weigh one hundred pounds, armor and
all, and are operated by one or two thick iron rods firmly attached to
the head and hands, what wonder that the flooring of the stage is badly
damaged by the terrific battles waged upon it and has to be renewed
every two weeks!
Far removed from these unsophisticated performances, however, are the
poetic puppets of the Chicago Little Theatre. I use the present tense
optimistically despite the sad fact that the Little Theatre in Chicago
has been closed owing to unfavorable conditions caused by the war. But
although “Puck is at present cosily asleep in his box,” as Mrs. Maurice
Browne has written, we all hope that the puppets so auspiciously
successful for three years will resume their delightful activities,
somehow or other, soon.
At first the originators of the Chicago marionettes travelled far
into Italy and Germany, seeking models for their project. Finally in
Solln near Munich they discovered Marie Janssen and her sister, whose
delicate and fantastic puppet plays most nearly approached their own
ideals. They brought back to Chicago a queer little model purchased in
Munich from the man who had made Papa Schmidt’s Puppen. But, as one
of the group has written, the little German puppet seemed graceless
under these skies. And so, Ellen Van Volkenburg (Mrs. Maurice Browne)
and Mrs. Seymour Edgerton proceeded to construct their own marionettes.
Miss Katherine Wheeler, a young English sculptor, modelled the faces,
each a clear-cut mask to fit the character, but left purposely rough in
finish. Miss Wheeler felt that the broken surfaces carried the facial
expression farther. The puppets were fourteen inches high, carved in
wood. The intricate mechanism devised by Harriet Edgerton rendered
the figures extremely pliable. Her mermaids, with their serpentine
jointing, displayed an uncanny sinuousness. Miss Lillian Owen was
Mistress of the Needle, devising the filmy costumes, and Mrs. Browne
with fine technique and keen dramatic sense took upon herself the task
of training and inspiring the puppeteers as well as creating the poetic
ensemble.
[Illustration: MARIONETTES AT THE CHICAGO LITTLE THEATRE
Production of _Alice in Wonderland_ under Mrs. Maurice Browne’s
direction
_Upper_: The Duchess’s Kitchen
_Lower_: The White Rabbit’s House]
The Chicago puppets are neither grotesque nor humorous and they have
little in common with the puppet of tradition. Theirs is an element
of exquisite magical fairy-land, with dainty beings moving about in
it, who can express beauty, tragedy and tenderness. Their repertoire
consists for the most part of fantasies written or adapted by members
of the group. The first was a delicious fairy adventure, a play for
children, _The Deluded Dragon_, founded upon an old Chinese legend,
wherein a lovely Prince seems to follow a Wooden Spoon down the River
certain that he will chance upon Adventure, which he does. The play
was decidedly successful, despite a most unfortunate accident at the
first performance caused by the impetuosity of the somewhat hurried
puppeteers. To be more explicit, “the fierce but fragile dragon parted
in the middle, his five heads swinging free of his timorously lashing
tail.” “The same year,” continues Miss Hettie Louise Mick, herself
puppeteer and composer of marionette plays, “Reginald Arkell’s charming
fantasy, _Columbine_, was produced with more patience and proved a
wholly delightful and almost finished thing.”
The next year two fairy tales were presented, _Jack and the Beanstalk_
and _The Little Mermaid_, both dramatized by the puppeteers. Great
technical advances had been made in the latter play and a delicate,
fantastic effect attained, approaching the ideals of the founders. The
last and most ambitious performance of this season was Shakespeare’s
_A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, given not only for children but openly
for the grown-ups. Of this production Miss Mick has written: “Puck,
who had been known formerly as the rather stiff little fairy who
introduced and closed each play in rhyme, now became his romping,
pliant self, tumbling through the air, doubling up in chortling
glee upon his toadstool and pushing his annoying little person into
every disconcerted mortal’s way. Titania emerged, a glowing queen of
filmy draperies, attended by flitting elves, and Oberon resumed his
crafty, flashing earth-character, his attendants being two inflated
and wholly impudent bugs. The Mechanicals, while clumsy, fulfilled
their parts well and brought the outworn humor of Shakespeare into
hilarious reality, the scene between Pyramus and Thisbe never failing
to bring roars of appreciation from the audience. Only the Greeks
were a dank and dismal failure. Hurriedly constructed to meet the
rapidly approaching production date, they were awkward, long-headed,
stiff-jointed creatures highly unlike their graceful originals. But
the lighting and settings, and the prevailing atmosphere of exquisite
unreality were such that the audience came night after night for five
weeks, and at the end of that time, when the theatre closed for the
season, demanded more.”
Mrs. Browne, in an informal letter about her puppets, has written
concerning this performance: “I don’t think I ever have seen such
delicate beauty as was achieved at the end of the Midsummer: I say it
in all simplicity because I have a curious, Irish feeling that the
little dolls took matters into their own hands and for once allowed us
a glimpse into their own secret world. The audience, whether of adults
or of children, never failed to respond with a sudden hush and the
poor, tired girls who had been working in great heat over the colored
lights for two hours never failed to get their reward.” Mrs. Browne
then proceeded to give an idea of the patient toil behind the scenes.
“We rehearsed six hours a day for about seven weeks to prepare the
play. Six girls worked the puppets; there were about thirty of them,
so you can see how many characters each girl had to create and how
many dolls she had to work (my puppeteers spoke for each puppet they
handled). Besides the actual workers, I had an understudy whose duty it
was to stand on the platform back of the girls to take their puppets
from them when the scenes were moving quickly and many characters were
leaving the stage at once; she then hung the puppets where they could
be easily reached for their next entrance. Hers was, of course, the
most thankless task of all because she had none of the pleasure, and
the accuracy of the performance depended upon her efficiency. None who
have not worked with puppets can understand the nervous strain of these
performances.”
The third year of the Chicago puppets saw progress in many directions.
The enthusiasm of the puppeteers had finally been aroused to the
point where each contributed suggestions in the line of mechanical
construction or the adapting of plays. Mr. H. Carrol French of the
South Bend Little Theatre came to be puppet manager and added many
improvements to the mechanism of the dolls, constructing the bodies of
wire instead of wood (some suggestions for which he received through
the courtesy of Mr. Tony Sarg). The new dolls were more sensitive to
manipulation than the old, and more individual in their gestures. The
repertoire for this season consisted of two little fairy plays, _The
Frog Prince_ and _Little Red Riding Hood_, adaptations of Miss Mick,
and then _Alice in Wonderland_, made into a play by Mrs. Browne.
While this play never wove so strong a poetic spell as _A Midsummer
Night’s Dream_, it marked great strides in skill on the part of the
manipulators. This same year the little puppets went on a tour, not
only into the suburbs of Chicago but, under the auspices of the
Drama League, as far as St. Louis. Let us hope that at some not too
distant date Puck, moving sprite among this brave and poetic band of
marionettes, will gaily revive and travel farther with his troupe so
that we all may witness and enjoy his fairy charms.[5]
[Illustration: MARIONETTES AT THE CLEVELAND PLAY HOUSE
Presenting _The Life of Chopin_
Puppets and scenery designed by Carl Broemel]
The Cleveland Playhouse has had its puppet stage from the very
beginning of the organization. Mr. Raymond O’Neil, the director,
has always taken a great interest in the puppets. He believes, with
Mr. Gordon Craig, that they might well serve as models in style,
simplicity and impersonality for living actors, but he also avers that
they are capable of presenting certain types of drama as effectively
if not more satisfactorily than the best of actors, and certainly
better than any second-rate performers. When the Cleveland Playhouse
was still a very small, informal group it was decided to produce a
serious marionette play. The director selected for this purpose _The
Death of Tintagiles_, written by Maeterlinck expressly for puppets. A
Cleveland artist, Mr. George Clisby, worked out the proper proportions
for the marionettes and the stage and their relation to each other.
It is recognized by all who witness them that the effectiveness and
success of the Cleveland productions are due in great part to the happy
proportions prevailing in the marionette scenes and the sense of a
complete, harmonious whole which they create.
Mr. Clisby also designed the costumes for the first dolls, and the
scenery. Only the significant and essential was allowed upon his
little stage, strong, simple lines and colors, a few poplar trees upon
a hilltop in the blue dusk of the evening, or plain, gloomy chambers
with high arches leading away into mysterious passages, or at the very
last, merely a door, a massive, closed iron door set in bare walls. The
figures were planned in the same spirit. Being very small they were
given practically no features, a scowling eyebrow, a dignified beard,
long hair or short, stiff or flowing, being sufficient indication of
the type represented.
Miss Grace Treat, who made and dressed most of the marionettes, caught
and embodied the artist’s ideal in strange, tall puppets, naïve but
marvelously impressive. The construction of these puppets, although
extremely simple, had to be planned and executed patiently. Often a
marionette was taken apart and made over again until the right effect,
or the proper gesture, was obtained. The puppets are somewhat like rag
dolls, of a soft material, stuffed with cotton or scraps, weighted and
carefully balanced with lead. Five and at most seven strings are used
and the control is very primitive. This studied simplicity in structure
and in costume has given the Cleveland puppets a naïve style,--their
limitations both defining and emphasizing the significance of each
little figure. Miss Treat was also the master-manipulator of the
puppets and in her hands the stiff little Ygraine took on heroic and
tragic proportions.
For many months a small group of faithful enthusiasts struggled to
attain the standard set for them by director and artist. The play was
finally given before an audience of Playhouse members. Mr. O’Neil
produced the strangely beautiful lighting with the crudest facilities
imaginable. The parts were read by members of the group who had been
working along patiently with the manipulators until words, settings and
action had grown perfectly harmonious. Those who were privileged to
witness this first production were deeply thrilled by the poetic beauty
of it, and still mention it as an unusual experience.
Encouraged by this initial success, the group determined to continue
with marionettes. But the Playhouse itself was going through a winter
of vicissitudes and the puppeteers were compelled to endure and suffer
many delays and disappointments. Rehearsing in a rear room of an empty
house loaned for the season (and often fabulously cold!) with readers
and operators dropping out one by one from sheer discouragement or
because of war work, trying out several plays which for one reason or
another proved impossible, still a nucleus of the old group, with the
addition of a few new workers, held on, held out through this second
season under the ever optimistic leadership of Grace Treat. After
moving into other temporary quarters, to be exact, into the high and
dingy little ball-room of an old residence turned boarding-house, the
group produced a very successful repetition of _Tintagiles_.[6]
Meanwhile the Playhouse had purchased a little church which it
remodeled, decorated and equipped as a permanent theatre. During this
time, and under most trying circumstances brought about by the war, the
director contrived to present several productions for the first Winter
in the new playhouse, among them two marionette performances. Most of
the puppeteers and readers for both of these plays were new at the work
and had to be trained from the very beginning. The stage, too, had been
altered to admit of a cyclorama, improved lighting arrangements and,
quite incidentally, a stronger and safer _bridge_. Nevertheless certain
methods and principles of manipulating were evolved which somewhat
raised the dexterity of the group as a whole.
One of the plays we produced was _Shadowy Waters_ by Yeats, a dreamy,
far-away, old Irish drama which lent itself beautifully to our type of
poetic puppets. Mr. John Black designed the colorful costumes and the
scene upon the deck of a vessel. The pleasure of making and dressing
the impressionistic dolls was delegated to me, but all willing members
of the group were allowed to share in this privilege. There were five
long-suffering readers and four patient operators, besides the director
of the group, who also manipulated, with extra assistance, at the
very end, to carry the marionettes back and forth behind the scene.
Mr. O’Neil also generously helped in staging the production. Many and
varied were the rehearsal evenings we spent together. But, when at
last the curtain slowly fell upon the Queen in her turquoise gown with
“hair the color of burning” and her dark, melancholy lover beside her,
deserted by the sailors and drifting away over shadowy blue waters
to the strains of the magic harp, we all felt that we had created
something of beauty, despite our inexperience and obvious shortcomings.
[Illustration: MARIONETTES AT THE CLEVELAND PLAY HOUSE
Production of _Shadowy Waters_ by W. B. Yeats
Puppets and scenery designed by John Black
]
The other puppet play was somewhat in the nature of a departure at
the Playhouse. A little narrative of the life of Chopin, written by
Mr. Albert Gehring, was read to the accompaniment of piano selections
from Chopin’s music while dainty little figures of the period, gently
moving, enacted the scenes in the story as it proceeded. This method
has had many and ancient precedents in the ambulent puppet shows of
the Middle Ages. The success of the experiment has suggested to some
puppeteers in the group the idea of further attempts in this manner.
Mr. Carl Broemel was the artist who designed the elegantly clad and
exquisite little dolls, as well as the setting for the play. The latter
was a remarkable example of a miniature interior which, despite its
diminutive furnishings, had nothing petty about it but gave one the
unified, powerful effect of a dignified painting, poetically and simply
conceived.
Thus the Cleveland puppets have struggled along through hard days of
war and worries, very much alive although perhaps less active than
they may hope some day to be. Plans have been made to start rehearsing
a play longer and more important than the recent endeavors, (possibly
Hauptmann’s _Hannele_). The problem of a permanent marionette theatre
depending upon volunteer workers is unbelievably difficult, but we feel
that with time the solution can be found not only for our group but for
other communities as well who may venture upon this fascinating minor
branch of dramatic endeavor.[7]
To New York accrues the credit of having to-day professional
marionettes on exhibition in a theatre on Broadway. Created by
the inventive genius of Mr. Tony Sarg, and sustained through the
sympathetic interest of Mr. Winthrop Ames, these most accomplished and
amazing dolls made their debut at the Neighborhood Playhouse over a
year ago, whence, after, arousing great enthusiasm, they moved into the
Punch and Judy Theatre. There, before an audience of appreciative big
and little folk, they performed three tales of fable and fantasia, or
as the headlines of a newspaper described it, after the manner of the
old advertisements: “Master marionettes of new Refinements. Strangely
Human Semblance and Various Illusion ... Tale and Whimsey.”
The story of these marionettes began over five years ago in London,
where Mr. Sarg had his studio in _The Old Curiosity Shop_, made famous
by Dickens. There he worked at his illustrating and played with his
puppets. The performances he gave for the amusement of himself and
his friends encouraged him in becoming more and more absorbed in
the miniature stage. After the war had broken out, Mr. Sarg came to
New York and brought his marionettes along. Here he continued his
professional activities, illustrating diligently and most successfully,
with interludes of puppet play. When, finally, Mr. Ames became
interested in presenting these puppets to the public, it was found
necessary to enlarge and elaborate upon the original pattern, and after
many months of experimenting, patient labor and happy inspiration, Mr.
Sarg perfected the ingenious, three-foot marionettes used in these
first public productions.
[Illustration: MR. TONY SARG’S MARIONETTES BEHIND THE SCENES]
Each of his thirty-six or more little figures was designed with an
eye to its special uses; some require as many as twenty-four strings
for the manipulating. One of the little figures is a masterpiece of
flexibility. Of her it has been written: “This doll is an Oriental
dancer. Her contortions and posturings are in perfect imitation of the
living Nautch-girl and it is safe to say that nothing ever seen on
the puppet stage of America at least can surpass the ease and grace
with which her little body sways backward in an inverted crescent, the
ethereal lightness of her circling about the stage and the abandon of
her attitudes in the dance.” Another critic comments with an almost
audible chuckle: “... a nine days’ marvel and most improper. She pains
and shocks all right thinking people by her shameless display of those
allurements against which all the prophets have warned the sons of men.”