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had suggested that theater, or any art, should present reality
exactly as it was observed. But the 19th century’s romance with
science seduced European artists in many genres to try to present
“objective data.”
Realism is one theoretical ground where puppets cannot
compete on equal footing with live actors. But the alternative
seemed to be accepting society’s verdict that a non-realistic
form was fit only for children. Since children had usually
been a part of the target audience anyway, many puppet
artists settled into this truncated role.
Toward the turn of the 20th century, vaudeville variety
shows, spectator sports, and then film grabbed up much of
the audience. For a time, puppeteers found a niche in
vaudeville working as miniature stand-up comics, jugglers,
blackface minstrels, and ventriloquist's dummies. But that
venue also dried up a few decades into the new century.
As Europe’s colonial expansion sparked interest in the exotic,
international expositions and returning travelers introduced the
West to a new array of constructed-actor theater.
Some of Jim Henson’s puppets used in The Muppets
Asia
In China, puppets figure in several early legends. Around paralleled Europe’s lower-class shows, with hand-puppet
farces and trick puppets dominating an increasingly marginal
1,000 B.C.E., a performer condemned to death for flirting with field. Then in the early 20th century, Tony Sarg brought
a royal concubine was spared when he was shown to be a puppet. puppet art into the mainstream, performing at major venues
During China’s Song-dynasty (960-1279) puppets played for such as the 1933 World’s Fair and nurturing the next
all social classes – in designated entertainment districts and generations of artists. Sarg is widely known for starting
along roadsides, as well as in wealthy homes and even at the mechanically animated window displays for Macy’s
court. Overseers of morality condemned puppetry as in 1928, which run from Thanksgiving to Christmas,
fostering bad behavior. Portraying ordinary people, the and also designing the helium filled balloons for the
domestic tribulations of the great and swash-buckling Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in 1935 that are still
melodramas, these puppets became Japan’s most part of the tradition.
popular entertainment. Finally, television brought constructed-actor
Shadow puppets in India may descend from 2,500-
year-old leather cutouts from Central Asia. By the theater to a vast audience. In 1946 in Britain, the
long career of Muffin the Mule, possibly the first
13th century C.E., India clearly had performances celebrity puppet created entirely by television,
that used shadows to enact a story. India’s 3D puppet was launched. American puppets entered
repertory ranges from sacred, heroic, and elegant to children’s TV the following year and soon
satiric, raunchy, and slapstick. The hub of Southeast included such stars as Snarky Parker, Howdy
Asian shadow puppetry is the Island of Java, where Doody, Lamb Chop, and Kukla and Ollie. As
the art has thrived for at least 1,000 years. The television became widespread in Europe and Asia,
puppets, over time, became gorgeously unrealistic, so did TV puppet shows aimed at children. In addition,
possibly because of Java's conversion to Islam which television’s variety shows for adults included vaudeville-like
forbade the use of human images. puppet entertainment. Most important, Jim Henson and his

Muppets, a growing presence beginning in
America Historians talk about animated figurines which 1954, endowed generations worldwide with
Across the Atlantic as well, the constructed- were used in sacred and domestic rite. In Egypt, for vivid theatrical imagination.
actor theater was coming of age. America’s example, women walked in procession with statues Puppetry also developed an organizational
18th and 19th century puppetry had largely made by earthenware and moved by strings during support structure. By 1929, an international
the rites dedicated to the God Osiris

Chinese Shadow Puppetry - Placed against translucent cloth screens, Frank Ballard (1929 – 2010), Puppeteer, Designer/Director, Teacher
puppets are then manipulated by skilled masters to create the illusion of at the University of Connecticut and founder of the Ballard Institute and Museum
movement which is usually accompanied by song and dance. of Puppetry. “A puppet is the artist’s soul set free.”
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