Part 12

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]

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.

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.

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.”

I myself was even more impressed by Mr. Sarg’s puppet-juggler. He is an adorable little expert, tossing and catching his many golden balls with such tense, nervous concern, jerking his head left and right to watch first this hand, then that, then a ball high in air and, having accomplished his trick, he stands with such justifiable pride and swelling of chest to receive the well-earned plaudits of the audience! It was a quite irresistible bit of mimicry. There is, indeed, a nice humor and an enjoyable but not overemphasized flavor of the grotesque in these marionettes. Heads, hands and feet are a little exaggerated in proportion to the rest of the body; added to this, the ease with which they accomplish the humanly impossible and the difficulty with which they perform some very trivial and ordinary human acts all bring about a curious absurdity which is highly amusing.

Of the three plays presented the opening season, the first was _The Three Wishes_, an old fairy tale dramatized by Count F. Pocci for the marionette theatre of Papa Schmidt in Munich and re-adapted by Mr. Ames. “The tiny stage,” writes Miss Anne Stoddard, “is set in a shadow box; the curtain rises on a sunny knoll with a glimpse of red roofs in the valley below; bright butterflies flutter above the grass; a saucy Molly cotton-tail bobs across the hillside.” Another witness of the performance continues: “The supernatural is a ready aid to the marionette drama. Hence one is not surprised to find in the first play of Mr. Sarg’s entertainment a fairy being released from an imprisoning tree by an old woodcutter and offering her liberator the familiar three wishes. The tale bears one of the morals familiar in German folklore. The woodcutter, having received his wish-ring, is awed by the responsibility which rests upon him and rushes to consult with the wife of his bosom. She is equally perturbed, but guards the ring for him while he departs to hold conference with the schoolmaster, but how perverse is human nature! The wife, entertaining a neighbor during his absence, casually expresses the wish for a plate of sausages. Presto, sausages hot and tempting appear before her. The woodcutter, returning and discovering what use his wife has made of the first wish, angrily wishes the sausages were growing at the end of her nose, and lo, so they are. The third wish still remains. But what will avail all the honor and wealth in the world if one’s wife is to make one ridiculous by carrying sausages on the end of her nose? Clearly there is nothing to be done but to utilize the third wish in wishing the sausages off again. And, this accomplished, the fairy appears to preach a homely sermon, pointing out how vain are human wishes and ambitions. Let each gain what he would have by his own will and industry and be contented with the lot he carves for himself.

“The edifying import of this tale is no less impressive than the spirited enactment of it,--the grace of the fairy, the ardor of the woodcutter, the nagging of the wife, the fervent emotion displayed by the housedog at the smell of the sausages. Such a mingling of fable, parable and sermon, of petty human nature with the inscrutable supernatural which hedges us all in is the authentic material of puppet-drama.”

The other two plays, expertly written by Mrs. Hamilton Williamson, displayed to the greatest advantage the particular talents of the puppet virtuosi. It is thus that she depicts the task of the marionette dramatist. “When Mr. Sarg first told me he wanted a snake-charmer, a juggler, an Oriental dancer, an elephant and a donkey in one play, I thought I couldn’t possibly get them together; but, you see, I did.” Yes, indeed, and more besides in the way of adventure, mystery and humor, very cleverly devised in the energetic, simple language best suited to the naïve audience of puppet actors. Nor did the duties of Mrs. Williamson end with her literary labors. Many and inspired were her humbler but equally arduous and indispensable achievements for these puppets.

A similar versatility was displayed by the young women who operated the puppets. Aside from the laboriously acquired precision essential in mastering the intricate controls devised for the dolls, each puppeteer has interested herself in other phases of the ancient craft. Some of them made the elaborate and colorful costumes for the dolls. Some helped manufacture the properties, tiny but complete and delightful. My very first glimpse of the marvelous puppets, indeed, was when, led by Mrs. Williamson, I came to a very dirty brownstone house not far from Washington Square, and, entering a gloomy hallway, penetrated through into the dark rear room where the puppeteers were at work, all in overalls, all very busy, all very amiable. Someone was sawing wood, someone was hammering, someone was up on the bridge practicing the donkey and there was a tiny, live monkey perched on the lumber which littered the floor. Puppets and monkey ... of course!--following the example of Brioché and his Fagotin and perfectly true to the best traditions!

It is Mr. Sarg who has trained and inspired all of his workers, who has designed the costumes as well as the faces and hands of the dolls, modeled after his drawings, who has invented the clever mechanism and most of the scenery and ingenious “business” of the stage, who has directed the actors’ interpretation of the lines, selected the incidental music, superintended the lighting effects, all with an easy air of merely enjoying his little hobby.

The play selected by Mr. Sarg for his puppets during their second season was a very fortunate choice. It was Thackeray’s little fairy story, _The Rose and the Ring_, made into a drama by one of the puppeteers, Miss Hettie Louise Mick, who had dramatized other tales for marionettes when she was working with the Chicago puppets. Nothing could have been better suited to the nature of Mr. Sarg’s dolls, humorous, dainty, delicious, all in quaint trappings, and with divertingly elaborate settings suggestive of the Victorian era quite proper to the story. To add to the excellence of his production, Mr. Sarg secured Mrs. Browne to advise in staging and to direct the rehearsing. She applied her usual methods, training the puppeteers first through having them act out and speak the lines themselves before operating the dolls. The manipulators always talk for the marionettes they operate.

To facilitate in taking the show about the country a collapsible stage was constructed and the puppets were reduced in size. This diminution of stature brought about a new refinement, a more mincing manner and a more piquant facial eccentricity. Early in Spring, _The Rose and The Ring_ went on a Western tour, visiting Detroit, Ann Arbor and Cleveland. Mr. Sarg had a group of six manipulators, including Miss Lillian Owen, mistress of the wardrobe and a sort of right-hand man, and Mr. Searle, master stage mechanic and constructor of clever scenery and properties, another right-hand man in fact, and Miss Mick, who wrote the play. A musician also came along and produced the tinkly, tinny, toy music so properly attuned to the puppet play. The production abounded in pretty surprises, horrible suspenses, fairy magic, transformations, shadow play, dancing dolls, piano playing puppets, knights in armor, animals, everything desirable! Throughout there was the flow of Thackeray’s inimitable, good-natured satire, skillfully preserved by Miss Mick. After enthusiastic receptions wherever he visited with them, Mr. Sarg returned to New York with his marionettes and installed them in the Punch and Judy theatre, where they continued to enjoy their usual popularity.

Mr. Sarg has been asked why he does not attempt poetic drama with his marionettes. He is faced, of course, with the problem which confronts all the puppet showmen here in America of finding material suitable for a given type of doll and also acceptable to local audiences, hitherto unacquainted with the characteristics and traditions of the burattini. Concerning a possible performance of one of Maeterlinck’s dramas by the marionettes, Mr. Sarg has said: “I am turning that over in my mind. The practicable difficulty is the exaggerated walk of the dolls, which always brings laughter from the audience. But I dare say I can manage that all right when I have a chance to work over it a bit.” Let us hope that this minor difficulty will not prove insurmountable, for, as Mr. H. K. Moderwell in the _Boston Transcript_ has so aptly written: “If he will draw further from the ancient and noble sources of puppet literature, if he will bid his dolls enact some of those dramas which have made the art of the marionette an inspired art, he will merit the plaudits of all puppet-starved America.”

_Toy Theatres and Puppet Shows for Children_

Whether, out of their infinite variety, the puppets please or fail to satisfy us, there is one audience invariably eager for them. Puppet shows for children, toy theatres managed by children, what could be more fitting? Specially adapted, professional performances such as the Guignol and Casperle plays have ever catered to youthful tastes with astonishing and perennial success. The home-made booths for simple dolls worked on the fingers are so quickly contrived. Little stages for marionettes are easy to construct out of ordinary kitchen tables. Mr. Gordon Craig gives explicit directions as well as an excellent drawing in his letter, _The Game of Marionettes_, which is published in _The Mask_, volume five. Shadow plays can be arranged by merely stretching a sheet across a door with a cardboard frame and cardboard figures pressed behind it and a light to illuminate the silhouettes. How much fun to have Red Riding Hood thus portrayed, for a birthday party or the shadow of Santa Claus with his reindeer sailing over the shadow gables and down the shadow of the chimney on Christmas eve!

The _Juvenile Drama_ of Skelt and his successors, Park, Webb, Redington and Pollock, has been immortalized by Stevenson in his little essay, _A Penny Plain and Twopence Colored_. Printed on thin sheets of cardboard to be cut out and colored by the youthful stage manager (unless he bought, oh shame! the _Twopence Colored_), were characters and scenes for the most exciting plays. Special properties for illuminating and coloring could be acquired also, at extra expense. The words of the drama, plus directions, were printed in a pamphlet. They were based upon thrilling old English melodramas; they presented startling and highly theatrical situations.

“In the Leith Walk window all the year round, there stood displayed a theatre in working order, with a _Forest Set_, a _Combat_, and a few _Robbers Carousing_ in the slides; and below and about, dearer tenfold to me! the plays themselves, those budgets of romance, lay tumbled one upon the other. Long and often have I lingered there with empty pockets. One figure, we shall say, was visible in the first plate of characters, bearded, pistol in hand, or drawing to his ear the clothyard arrow. I would spell the name: was it Macaire or Long Tom Coffin, or Grindoff, 2d dress? Oh, how I would long to see the rest! How--if the name by chance were hidden--I would wonder in what play he figured and what immortal legend justified his attitude and strange apparel! And then to go within to announce yourself as an intending purchaser, and, closely watched, be suffered to undo those bundles and to breathlessly devour those pages of gesticulating villains, epileptic combats, bosky forests, palaces and warships, frowning fortresses and prison vaults--it was a giddy joy.”