The recent emergence of puppetry in mainstream British theatre and the outing of ‘the p word’ in public discourse have garnered puppet advocates from unlikely corners. It has also caused some consternation among formerly marginalised puppeteers (who are concerned that ‘their’ artform is misrepresented, appropriated or performed badly) and among directors and actors (who can feel bewildered and even threatened by the co-presence of puppets). Two linked London symposia held at the Central School of Speech and Drama (CSSD) and The Little Angel Theatre on 16 and 17 February addressed issues of cross-artform collaboration, the uses of puppets in actor training, the challenges faced by novice actors and directors in working with puppets and the current place of puppets in theatre for children and young people. These symposia were also opportunities for taking stock of the achievements of British puppetry for adults and children and the successes and failures of puppeteers’ communications with other theatre artists.

How to Act

The CSSD event took the form of a round table titled ‘What Can the Puppet Teach the Actor?’. This was organised as part of a four-day conference on the theme of How to Act.



The speakers included: Mark Down (Blind Summit), Stephen Mottram, Rene Baker, Mervyn Millar, John Dean and Bianca Mastrominico (Organic Theatre), Mandy Travis (Lost and Found Theatre Company), Luis Boy (Norwich Puppet Theatre), Phelim McDermott (Improbable) and Penny Francis (Puppet Centre Trust). The round table was moderated by CSSD’s Jessica Bowles and Cariad Astles, who explained that it was part of an initiative to establish a centre for puppetry research and assemble a handbook on puppetry.

Dean and Mastrominico reflected on the balance between formalism and capriciousness in their experiments with puppets in their theatre laboratory. Puppets provide Organic Theatre a means to externalize aspects of the self and split one’s consciousness. They can take control of the actor and lead her to new spaces and actions, in a trance-like state, and inform theatre artists generally about life on stage. At the same time, Organic Theatre has rediscovered the ancient principle that puppets communicate effectively when their actions are codified. Spontaneous improvisations appear clumsy, while pre-prescribed Grotowskian sequences of physical actions allow the puppet to appear life-like.

Director Mervyn Millar drew on his experience of directing puppet sequences involving non-puppeteers. To him, puppetry is a frame of mind — the actor who believes in the independent life of the object can portray emotion through a cup or marionette. There are skills involved, but these differ depending on the particular type of puppet to be animated. What is more important is to get past technique in order to act.

Puppeteer Rene Baker outlined her approach to using puppets for actor training. In her work in Britain and Spain, she has honed techniques using puppets and performing objects to teach actors principles of ensemble, self-awareness and spatial relations. Puppets clarify movement and allow the actor to disentangle her personal life with the emotions of characters portrayed. Working with puppets yields a generous actor who is aware that she is only one element of a stage work. The actor becomes self aware, not self-conscious, and never feels alone on stage, as she always has the object with her.

Puppeteer Stephen Mottram advocated the need for lengthy training in puppet animation. Puppeteers, in his view, should be wary of intuitive handling. What is needed is a high degree of consciousness of mood, balance, gravity, focus and tactile relations. The puppeteer needs to be fully in control of how he appears to the audience and at the same time not appear overly technical. This requires training akin to that possessed by classical musicians.

Director Mark Down argued that actors typically make better performers than puppet-makers. The techniques of breathing and focus he uses to train actor-puppeteers are the same as actors use in actor-centred work, except that the actors must ‘throw’ their centres by an act of imagination into the puppet. The actor-puppeteer must be present as a charismatic performer, not a manipulator.

Director Phelim McDermott warned that an overemphasis on skill can make puppetry something “special” and thereby ghettoise the field. He stated a need for occasional “dolly waggling” in order to avoid being overly precious – Shockheaded Peter was created from an impulse to do bad puppetry, to “bust things open”. McDermott reflected that he can express himself as a director with puppets in a way that is not possible with human actors. He can get angry at them, and comment explicitly about a puppet’s body and qualities of movement. The puppets then either sort themselves out or exaggerate faults — and neither the puppets nor the puppeteers feel insulted. Puppets also allow him to break taboos and depict sex and violence in a convincing manner. A puppet in Shockheaded Peter can appear to have its thumbs cut off, but if a child was substituted for this figure it would be truly disturbing. 

Penny Francis, drawing on Edward Gordon Craig’s 1921 essay Puppets and Poets, spoke of the puppet as “the actor’s primer”. Working with puppets allows actors to strip down their performance to the essence of character. Detailed psychological acting is good for the camera, but does not work on stage, which requires clarity and unity of style and design. Puppets are created to be moved in relation to everything else on stage, and actors should be similarly sensitive.

Actor-puppeteer Mandy Travis discussed the magical relation between puppet and the visible puppeteer and the processes by which she extends character into the object she manipulates. She said that working with puppets has enhanced her own acting skills by making her more aware of her body movement and voice on stage.

In a fascinating provocation, director Luis Boy argued against the humanistic approach to puppetry advocated by most of the other participants. Puppets, he claimed, are inherently clumsy, crude and stupid imitations of the human body; their limitations are their essence. The visibility of the animator and the sight of multiple animators working together to animate a single figure in Bunraku and related puppetry works against individualism. Boy advocated a move away from the focus on the representation of the human figure in order to explore realms of abstraction similar to those that have fuelled innovation in modern art over the last century.

In a discussion that followed presentations, panellists and puppeteers in the audience advocated a dynamic relation between puppeteer and puppet. There was general agreement among participants that one should speak of animation rather than manipulation, which involves domination and the appearance of control. Sarah Wright (of Little Angel Theatre), who was an artist in residence at CSSD during the conference, etymologised that this meant giving or recognising the soul of an object. McDermott said that what is necessary is to have a dialogic relation with the object that is animated in order for the object to tell you what it wants to do.

The roundtable in general had the feeling of an internal discussion among experts who share a body of practice, and are in the process of extending their puppetry skills to deal with situations outside of the puppet theatre proper. While there were evident points of disagreement, most embraced the challenges that the opening up of the field has generated, and welcomed the opportunities for crossing artistic genres, working collaboratively and reaching new publics.

How to work with puppets in children’s arts

The one-day event that followed at The Little Angel on ‘Puppetry and Performance’ was addressed to a more general audience, including children’s theatre practitioners, theatre students and arts administrators. The intention behind this self-dubbed ‘inspiration day’ was to introduce non-experts to recent developments in British puppetry and the ways that puppetry has been used to create theatre for children. The day was organised by Action for Children’s Arts, with funding from The Macintosh Foundation (producer of Avenue Q) and Disney (as the producer of The Lion King), and was a significant occasion for discussing the diversity of performance, workshops and training activity in Britain today. Presenters included Penny Francis, Steve Tiplady (Indefinite Article), Luis Boy, Tim Webb and Clair de Loon (Oily Cart), Jessica Bowles and Cariad Astles, Roman Stefanski (Polka Theatre), Nigel Plaskitt, Lee Threadgold and Natalie Querol (Puppet Centre Trust).

The event opened with a tribute to John Wright, the founder of Little Angel, by puppeteer Ronnie LeDrew, who began his career as a Little Angel apprentice in the 1960s. LeDrew related the biography of Wright, from his inspiration by Nina Efimova’s book Adventures of a Russian Puppet Theatre (translated into English in 1935) to Wright’s creation of a dedicated puppet theatre in London and receipt of an MBE in 1977.

Penny Francis, in her keynote address, spoke of puppetry as the apparent endowment of spirit into things. Children, she claimed, are animists. They already believe that things possess life. The challenge for theatre makers is to harness this belief into making theatre for them. Puppets not only allow for magical effects, they are themselves magical and bring children in close touch with a story world. The maker of puppet theatre must bring artistry, inventiveness and an imagination as wide as that of a child.

Steve Tiplady spoke about his journey from Marxist children’s theatre to puppet theatre. His first encounter with puppetry was through his collaboration with Sue Buckmaster (now artistic director of Theatre-Rites) in Working Parts. Tiplady was initially suspicious of objects as they had their own strange world. He preferred to work with ordinary objects and transform them into extraordinary objects through theatrical action. In this way, children’s understanding of objects was transformed and they were inspired to play — ‘I can do that’. He recounted that some of the most inspirational productions were ‘radio versions’ of shows by Robert Lepage and Nada Theatre with unusual animation techniques that he had heard about rather than seen himself. He has grown over the years to embrace puppets and the world which they create — modifying traditional forms in untraditional ways.

Luis Boy spoke about how international travel and international festivals have coloured his appreciation of puppets. A wave of migration of Argentine puppeteers to Spain in the 1970s introduced Boy to adult puppetry; the travels of John Blundall and Ray DaSilva to Japan, where they saw Bunraku, likewise had a formative impact on British puppetry. Now, contact with international styles of puppetry is commonplace, but British puppetry tended to be very provincial before the 1979 London Puppet Festival, organised by Penny Francis. Boy spoke about how parents formerly desired to attend Norwich Puppet Theatre performances for a “déjà vu experience” to pass on the culture of their childhood to their offspring. But the children themselves were bored of older styles of puppetry. Boy created new productions using contemporary techniques of object animation that some adults did not recognise as puppetry; but the children themselves, with their high capacity for fantasy, have been open to new experiences. Increasingly, audiences are receptive to new work and less puritan in their expectations.

Tim Webb and Clair de Loon described Oily Cart’s interactive approach to creating theatre for children under five years of age and young people with complex disabilities. They argued there was no point in trying to work with fourth wall realism, as under fives will attempt to enter into the play world regardless. He thus caters for this impulse through multi-sensory and interactive work. This work has drawn significantly (though not exclusively) on puppetry traditions. Webb began his career as a Punch professor (and still occasionally performs in this role) and a swazzle is used for the baby bird character in Jumpin’ Beans; a trip to a Turkish bath and the tradition of Karagoz inspired the hydrotheatre and shadow puppets of Dreams and Secrets. Jessica Bowles and Cariad Astles discussed how puppetry and object animation is introduced into training in a general degree in theatre practice at Central School of Speech and Drama as a way to develop imagination, storytelling skills and play. They also described a specialist undergraduate puppetry strand in which students begin in their first year to play freely with puppets, create stories in their second year, and work independently to form their own artistic identity in the third year of their studies.

After lunch, participants were treated to brief workshops by Lee Threadgold, Nigel Plaskitt and Roman Stefanski. Threadgold related workshop techniques for constructing and animating robust puppets with children in ‘dry sessions’ (without glue or paint), using cloth, tinfoil, Christmas tree balls and other cheap materials. He also demonstrated a Frog Prince automaton that he takes into schools. Plaskitt spoke about his puppet work on television and the West End, and demonstrated Kate Monster (from Avenue Q) and the ITV Digital Monkey. He also let participants play with Oobi-style bare-hand puppets and a television monitor. Stefanski demonstrated principles of animation with puppets from past Polka Theatre productions, and allowed participants to handle these well-crafted figures. The day concluded with a performance of Go Noah Go, a Little Angel Theatre production currently in revival, and a question and answer session with the show’s director Christopher Leith.

It was in general a stimulating day that demonstrated the evocative power of puppets to kindle the imagination, the dynamism of British puppetry practice, and the curiosity and interest that innovative puppet work has caused among students and professionals of the arts. Both this one-day event and the CSSD round table also showed the importance of public gatherings of practitioners, students, scholars and devotees of puppetry for the purpose of networking, information dissemination, comparative study and debate. One can only hope that similar events in this vein will be organised in the near future.

What Can the Puppet Teach the Actor?  Took place at Central School of Speech and Drama, 16 February 2007, as part of the How To Act conference. Central are hosting a student puppet theatre festival 24– 26 April 2007, in association with BA/MA Theatre Practice: Puppetry. In The New Studio, The Central School of Speech and Drama. See www.cssd.ac.uk

Puppetry and Performance took place at The Little Angel Theatre 17 February 2007. See www.littleangeltheatre.com