A puppet is not an actor and a puppet theatre is not human theatre in miniature, because when an actor 'represents', a puppet 'is.'- David Currell, An Introduction to Puppets and Puppetmaking
They all have their own personalities. They're all very human, more so in some ways than people with blood in their veins.Before tackling the thematic complexities of RHYMES WITH EVIL it might be helpful to explore the nuts and bolts (or strings and rods) of puppetry: the basic types of puppet. Conventions vary across history and cultures, but most puppets may be classified as one of the following five types: hand/glove, rod, marionette, flat figure, and shadow puppet. Many thanks to Encyclopedia Britannica for the information.
- RHYMES WITH EVIL
1) Hand or glove puppets
A hollow cloth body fits over the manipulator’s hand; his fingers fit into the head and the arms and give them motion. The figure is seen from the waist upward, and there are normally no legs. The head is usually of wood, papier-mâché, or rubber material, the hands of wood or felt. One of the most common ways to fit the puppet on the hand is for the first finger to go into the head, and the thumb and second finger to go into the arms.
Pros: agility and quickness
Cons: small size and limited arm gestures.
These full-length figures, controlled from above, are normally moved by strings or threads which lead from the limbs to a control or crutch held by the manipulator. Movement is imparted to a large extent by tilting or rocking the control, but individual strings are plucked when a decided movement is required. A simple marionette may have nine strings—one to each leg, one to each hand, one to each shoulder, one to each ear (for head movements), and one to the base of the spine (for bowing); but special effects will require special strings that may double or treble this number. The manipulation of a many-stringed marionette is a highly skilled operation. Controls are of two main types—horizontal (or aeroplane) and vertical. Pros: articulated pieces allow marionette to imitate nearly any human or animal gesture2) Marionettes or string puppets
Cons: strings provide only indirect control, and do not allow for the sharp, clear gestures possible with rod puppets.
3) Rod puppets
Like hand puppets, rod puppets are manipulated from below, but they are full-length, supported by a rod running inside the body to the head. Separate thin rods may move the hands and, if necessary, the legs. The hand-rod puppet combines the advantages of the hand and rod puppets; in this figure the hand passes inside the puppet’s body to grasp a short rod to the head, the arms being manipulated by rods in the usual way. One great advantage of this technique is that it permits bending of the body, the manipulator’s wrist corresponding to the puppet’s waist.
Pros: large size, greater range of movement than hand puppets Flat figures, worked from above like marionettes, with hinged flaps that could be raised or lowered, were sometimes used for trick transformations; flat jointed figures, operated by piston-type arms attached to revolving wheels below, were used in displays that featured processions. But the greatest use of flat figures was in toy theatres. These seem to have originated in England by a printseller in about 1811 as a kind of theatrical souvenir; one bought engraved sheets of characters and scenery for popular plays of the time, mounted them and cut them out, and performed the play at home. During a period of about 50 years some 300 plays—all originally performed in the London theatres—were adapted and published for toy-theatre performance in what came to be called the “Juvenile Drama.”
Cons: complex rod puppets can be very difficult to control
4) Flat figures
5) Shadow figures
These are a special type of flat figure, in which the shadow is seen through a translucent screen. They may be cut from leather or some other opaque material, as in the traditional theatres of Java, Bali, and Thailand, in the so-called ombres chinoises (French: literally “Chinese shadows”) of 18th-century Europe, and in the art theatres of 19th-century Paris; or they may be cut from coloured fish skins or some other translucent material, as in the traditional theatres of China, India, Turkey, and Greece, and in the recent work of several European theatres. They may be operated by rods from below, as in the Javanese theatres; by rods held at right angles to the screen, as in the Chinese and Greek theatres; or by threads concealed behind the figures, as in the ombres chinoises and in its successor that came to be known as the English galanty show. The shadow theatre is a medium of great delicacy, and the insubstantial character of shadow puppets exemplifies all the truest features of puppetry as an art form.
