However, once a show is created, it can offer the advantage of economy of personnel and portability, because one man can carry an entire theater (of certain types of puppetry) on his back, and a cast of puppet actors survives almost indefinitely. Automaton figures moved by a clockwork mechanism that appear when a clock strikes a chime are not puppetry, and such elaborate automaton performances as those on the clock in the cathedral of Strasbourg (France) or on the clock in the town hall of Munich (Germany) should be excluded from consideration.īecause a common origin has been granted to human and puppet theater, one of the particular characteristics of puppet theater that have given it its special appeal and ensured its survival for so many centuries has been its complexity, for, no simpler to perform than human theater, it is more complicated, less direct and more costly in time and manpower to create. Puppet theater includes a multiple variety of shows and a diversity of types of puppets, but they exclude certain related activities and figures. ![]() There are references to puppetry in Herodotus, Xenophon, Aristotle, Horace, Marcus Aurelius and Apuleius. In ancient Egypt, in the 16th century BC, puppet theater developed from a religious play about Osiris and Isis in ancient India and China, it developed from religious rites. Puppet theater performances in most countries developed from mystery plays. One of the oldest forms of theatrical art, puppet theater generally used traditional plots and methods and stock figures. Puppet theater can be traced back to pagan ceremonies and plays with incarnated symbols of gods who personified the unknown forces of nature. The performances were banned by the Inquisition, but their anti-clerical and anti-feudal content continued to increase. Banished from church chapels to the parvis, puppet performances were later staged in public squares and at fairs. Puppet theater performances became increasingly topical and secular and were consequently attacked by the medieval church. In the Slavic languages, the name Marion designated the puppet theater (string puppets). The name Marion or Marionette remained in the Roman and German languages as a general term for the theatrical puppet. How did Puppet Theater develop?īeginning in the 11th century, churches and monasteries presented shows that used puppets to dramatize scenes from the Gospels in which the main character was the Virgin Mary. It involves a puppet with a human, animal or abstract figure in its form, which moves with human rather than mechanical assistance.ĭifferences in the types of puppet theater presentations are generally conditioned by the staging, dramatic objective, national traditions and the influence of other types of art such as graphic arts, folk toys, sculpture, masquerade and cinema. Normally puppet theater is a dramatic performance with figures and with dialogue or music provided by a puppeteer. Puppets vary in height from several centimeters to twice the size of a human. Sometimes an object such as a block, ball, or stick, which metaphorically represents a living being, is used in place of a puppet. ![]() Puppets include marionettes, which are manipulated with strings, hand puppets (overhead), rod puppets, and mechanical puppets. Each of the many types of presentation is determined by the type of puppet used and the control system. It is a type of theatrical presentation that uses two-dimensional or three-dimensional puppets operated by actors called puppeteers, who are usually hidden from the audience behind a screen.
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