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Below: Timon and Pumba actors
and their puppetry on stage during
The Lion King

Mufasa and Scar from Disney’s The Lion King on Broadway Photo by Joan Marcus (c) Disney

puppet union, UNIMA, was holding international festivals for The barbarity is irreverent rather than conscious, and often so
traditional and experimental work. In 1966, puppeteer Frank over-the-top that it bounds clear over the edge of horror into farce.
Ballard created a degree-granting program in puppetry at the Even good-natured puppetry often includes ludicrously violent
University of Connecticut, the first in America. In 1981, Jacques humor. In Jim Henson's pre-Sesame Street television commercials,
Felix established an international school and institute for puppetry, puppets were blown up or bonked with mallets after choosing the
l’Institut International de la Marionette in France. It trains wrong brand of bread or, in one case, protesting the violence in the
performers, holds festivals and produces puppet-related books and commercials.
journals. In 1998, The Lion King, teeming with puppets, garnered The English-American character Punch, a devil-may-care serial
Broadway’s Tony Award for Best Musical and the puppet production killer, is perhaps the most blithely sociopathic version of an
Avenue Q received the Best Musical Tony Award in 2004. unrepentant ruffian puppet whose chief modus operandi is
bludgeoning his victims, typically in unprovoked attacks. But he had
many foreign cousins with a familial resemblance: a huge, usually
hooked nose, often a hump-back, a satirical preference for red, and
a propensity for whacking people to death. And while they attack
authorities with special gusto, they also are wont to assault friends
and family. Perhaps the villain's most curious feature is that no
matter how monstrous he may be, the audience generally roots for
him. While this behavior is not exactly heroic in the traditional
sense, it’s monumental in its own way. Beyond merely violent, it
violates every law, every boundary of civilized behavior. These brutes
are bold enough to overstep all the limits, break every rule, exceed
what humans are meant to be and do.

Italian puppet theater with colour printed paper stage stickable in cardboard box;
with red curtain and scenery; 12 hand-made puppets; early 20th Century on
Bidsquare with an estimate of $250

VIOLENCE
One reason puppetry so often waxes violence is that it can. Still,
puppets’ ability to withstand violence cannot in itself explain their
extraordinary propensity for it. In nearly every part of the world,
constructed actors treat audiences of all ages and classes to scenes of 19th century Czech puppets in the Plzeñ puppetry museum photo: Rudolf Abraham
corporeal atrocity. Hand puppets in southern China have been
whacking and stabbing one another with spears since the 1500s. The POLITICS
first puppet images in medieval Europe show characters armed with
swords and truncheons going at one another. Puppets are inveterate political animals. And like many politicians,
A great deal of puppet violence is more playful than serious. they can play on both sides of the fence. Governments and religious
Comedy-based puppetry shows clobbering people has always authorities have sometimes kept constructed actors among their
been puppets’ specialty. It invites audiences to share not so much retainers to adorn festive occasions. In the 18th century, Franz
in vicarious sadism as in a prankster’s fun at breaking things. Joseph Haydn wrote a puppet opera to flatter the visiting Austro-

34 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles