The Swashbucklers Guild Puppet Theater

Mission Statement: 

To present diverse, progressive, and heroic sword-based puppet theater with an emphasis on classical works and their respective swords. Forward the agenda of casual swordplay as a means of exercise, entertainment, and education.

Style: 

SGPT will focus on creating a wide variety of styles to create visual and cultural diversity in the works presented. Styles will utilize hand and glove, rod, shadow, and synergistic puppets to challenge the audiences concept of reality and reward their willing suspension of disbelief. In addition to these traditional puppetry styles, SGPT will also utilize modern visual effects and digital recording and presentation as a means of creating both a unified media campaign, and a platform for building future works.

First Project: 

Warhamlet: Dusk of War. Written by Jeremiah Liend, Warhamlet is a sci-fi fantasy space opera epic. It bases itself entirely on the classical work by Shakespeare, and attempts to create a cognitive dissidence by juxtaposing miniature scale with macro scale. The ultimate goal is creating a live performance, but at current the goal of the Guild is to capture work digitally. Below is test footage of aligning green screening with voice, as well as a dialogue exchange with roughly composited faces. Neither represent the quality of the final product, but rather as proof of concept that works towards creating a 4 hour long nerd-epic.  

Josep Skupa and The Spejbl Hurvínek Theater

Of the many important puppeteers to champion social issues was Josep Skupa. He began working as a puppeteer in cabarets in Western Bohemia starting in 1920. In 1926 he would add an impetuous son to his act and the act was so popular he was able to secure his own space and starting in the 1930s created what is considered the first professional puppet theater. There he would perform acts through occupation of Nazi forces. His insurrectionist puppetry would place him in prison in 1944. Surviving Nazi occupation, Skupa would continue to perform while under Soviet rule. The Soviets saw his puppetry as directly subversive to the government, and one film he made using his characters was suppressed for 20 years. Skupa's spirit shows us how the smallest of symbols can scare the largest of powers with the way they can relate stories to popular audiences.

I admire this spirit for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that my family emigrated from Bohemia before either world wars. Later, it would not be Bohemia. Because history is strange. But the spirit of Bohemia is strong, and insurrection against unjust authority is validated and solidified by not only Skupa, but the fierce resistance offered by the Bohemian people by Nazi oppression. Famously, a group of commandos working with Czech underground operatives successfully assassinated Reinhard Heydrich. It was the only instance during the entire war that local resistance fighters were able to eliminate that high a ranking official. In terms of Skupa, and the theater he created in the midst of turmoil and war, what can we say, but that history is dotted but not overwhelmed with people willing to adhere to their beliefs and their arts when the jackboots are kicking down the stage door. We can’t even imagine the sort of circumstances that would put us in prison for expressing ourselves, or if we can it is a false imagining. Skupa remains important to all of this both as an example of how performance art can be used to resist tyranny, and how the spirit of the artist cannot be crushed by the weight of fascism. 

Muppet Nonfiction.

Whenever I think about muppets, I can’t help but think of my aunt Marilee. She took me to see The Muppet Movie at The Amigo Theater, back when it was The Amigo. And I think that it might be a made up memory, because it premiered the year before I was born. But I swear I saw it in the theater. And The Rainbow Connection is a song that is really quite haunting and fantastic. Nominated that year by the academy as best score. The muppets were and still remain my educators. It is from them that I learned how to count. A vampire taught me how to count. No matter what my kindergarten teacher may lead you to believe.

Cross stitched Sesame Street by Marilee Swinburne

Seasame Street and the birth of the muppets will probably be the crowning achievement of puppetry in the 20^th century. The list of awards won by the Jim Henson Company is a 25 page document in 8 point font. It began in 1958 with an Emmy and it is still growing. But the flip side of this coin is the loss of creative control. Disney rearing its corporate policies to distort and corrupt that which was designed to educate and glorify art. An elegant and passionate song distorted over the foul winds of capitalism.

 But is it our breed? In as much as USA is a melting pot, I would like to think that Sesame Street embodies that which is truly American. The spirit of collaboration and cohabitation. For that, to me, is what separates Jim Henson from the puppeteers before him. Taking collaboration to an entirely new level, and opening up the stage to peoples living rooms. Understanding that the television is a proscenium all its own. The imagined dream of using the great tool of mass communication for good, and not simply profit. And maybe it is all because we are all of us still on the lookout for that rainbow connection.

 

A Post For Postings Sake.

Aren't we all just puppets? Perhaps in control of our own strings, at times.

Puppet Speciation.

Class is going well, and the last chapter of our text went over the different species of puppets. They are, in brief, stick, string, hand, body, shadow. There are so many more than that. But. We are trying to be brief here. There are two things that interest me the most. The first is ventriloquism. It is a unique form of puppetry because the puppeteer is also part of the performance. The interaction with the inanimate is difficult. Teachers do it every day. Rim shot.

Edgar Bergen didn't invent it, but he certainly pioneered it. Took it to the next level. He did his show on radio. Which is hilarious to me. Because it so defeats the point as to seem insane. More insane than talking with ones self. All of these blind people wondering what the big deal is? Here is a video of Edgar and Charlie on The Muppet Show!

The other thing that really excites me is experimental puppetry, of whom I consider Mummenschanz to be the leader! They do some really weird stuff! For instance: 

Photo by PiaZanetti

Just weird. Weird but awesome. Here is ALSO a video of these people, of course, on The Muppet Show!!! So yeah! Wicked awesome. Peace out.

Alpha Post: What is your idea of a puppet?