Cuparia

Talk Like a Pirate Day is tomorrow (19 September), so I hope to have the pirate marionette finished today. I have a long way to go, and I am further frustrated by a desire to make a new head, since I made a mistake with the armature. I also need to shop for string — I hope to find Spiderwire.

I have finished painting three glove puppet heads and am in the midst of finishing a fourth. The hardest part for me is coming up: sewing the bodies.

There is so much to do, but I already want to work on several other things immediately, such as making a Judy puppet, making half of the puppets for the Halloween play, making new Wicked Witch of the West and Flying Monkey puppets, revising the Harry Potter puppet play, and writing several new puppet plays. In addition to the Halloween play, Daniel and I are discussing plans for a Mayan marionette play, and I’m still devising a plot for a science fiction parody that I hope to present at some conventions by next summer.

So, why am I sitting here writing this when I ought to be working on puppets?

Be seeing you…       :-?

Yesterday, I made a fourth Punch puppet head, and this will be the last one of Mr. Punch for a long time. It is the only one that truly looks like Punch, but the others are not a total loss. One will be painted appropriately and used as a goblin, imp, or or other mischievous creature; one will be used as an Igor for the Halloween puppet show I am working on; and the third, well, that remains to be seen. Now all I need to do is remake a Judy puppet (the first one is all wrong) and then I’ll have all the characters needed to perform The Comical Tragedy and Tragical Comedy of Punch & Judy.

The Halloween puppet show to which I alluded is the next big project I decided to undertake as of yesterday. There will be many puppets, at least two puppeteers probably, a larger puppet stage, and hopefully some sound effects or even music. It is untitled at this point, but I can reveal that it will include several famous movie monsters and many more real monsters! As Count Floyd would say, “Oooooooh, scary!” The trick is: Will it be finished before Halloween? And where will I perform it? Bah, technicalities!

Get your fix of puppet performances at Videos of Puppets.

This could prove to be an excellent resource, especially for those of us who do not have many opportunities to observe live performances of puppet shows.

To update a previous entry, I decided on 2′ marionettes, and made my first marionette head yesterday. I need to buy more materials before I can complete it, however, and as I am skinned, it will have to wait until next weekend at the earliest. Also, I learned that I do have access to a rudimentary sound system. I can use Danny Boy’s amplifier (which I had forgotten he owned) and his microphones (if he can find them). It’s basic, but it will suffice for now (and will certainly serve better than the borrowed karaoke machine to which I unhappily resorted during the last performance when the expected sound system was not present at the venue).

Danny Boy and I sculpted four additional puppet heads of the glove puppet variety (and all for Punch & Judy). Daniel made another Joey the Clown (he was unsatisfied with the previous one), a Hangman, and another Devil. I made yet another Punch (and this may be the one).

The marionette I started, incidentally, is a pirate. Once I get the hang of it, I’ll start making characters of a more definite identity.

I’m not sure I like the term “puppet builder,” a term that seems to be popular at the moment. Making puppets is a craft that is sometimes an art. “Building” infers the laborious construction of something more or less utilitarian and stationary, which doesn’t describe the process of making puppets at all. Take the first definition of “build” in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition:

1 : to form by ordering and uniting materials by gradual means into a composite whole : CONSTRUCT

It may be accurate for a house, dam, or pyramid, I suppose.

The simplest name for the craft and art of making puppets is puppet-making, and those who engage in the activity are puppet-makers. Let’s see the relevant definition of “make” in the same book:

3 a : to bring into being by forming, shaping, or altering material : FASHION

Yes, I think that is a much more satisfactory description. Where the creation of puppets are concerned, I am a maker. Where the construction of puppet stages are concerned, however, I am indeed a builder, but that is a subject for another article.

I am posting this for the benefit of those who may be confused about the categorization of puppet types. The easiest way is to list examples.

body puppet

Big Bird (Sesame Street)

glove puppet

Punch & Judy (Punch & Judy), King Friday (Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood), Kukla (Kukla, Fran and Ollie)

hand and rod puppet

Kermit the Frog (Sesame Street; The Muppet Show)

hand puppet (a.k.a. hand-in-mouth puppet)

Crocodile (Punch & Judy), Ollie (Kukla, Fran and Ollie), Lamb Chop (The Shari Lewis Show)

human arm puppet

Swedish Chef (The Muppet Show)

marionette

Pinocchio, Howdy Doody (The Howdy Doody Show)

marotte

a jester’s sceptre

rod marionette

typically represented by Sicilian and Czech theatre

rod puppet

wayang golek, a traditional Indonesian puppet type

shadow puppet

The Adventures of Prince Achmed