Journey into European Puppetry #1
Notes from European Puppet Explorations in 2005
Part 1- The Little Buffoons
- Guignol as performed by Les Petits Bouffons de Paris
It was a pleasant Parisian Sunday afternoon in March 2005. After watching several men tightrope-walking high up in the trees of the Buttes Chaumont Park as part of the French Arbor day celebrations we strolled over to the small Theatre Guignol Anatole. I had come to visit Les Petits Bouffons (the Little Buffoons) de Paris. Pascal Pruvost was a wiry stubble-headed man with a striking countenance. Bernard Willeme, his laconic partner in Guignol crimes, stood by. When asked by my friend Corinne which story they were going to perform today he replied in French “I have no idea yet.” The show was only a half-hour away. Both men were around 40 years old and certainly did not fit the American stereotype for the kind of people who perform with puppets for children. But I suppose that is because too many Americans equate puppets solely with cute and goofy Muppet-like creatures.
Guignoliste Pascal Pruvost ringing the traditional bell before the performance
Eventually it was time for the show. Pascal took a large old brass hand bell and walked around near the entrance of the compact outdoor theatre and rang it. This was the traditional signal that Guignol was about to appear to work his mischief. Guignol is the French relative of Punch in England,Kašpárekin the Czech Republic, Jan Klaassen in Holland, Kasperl in Germany: all descendants of Pulcinella of the Comedia del Arte in Italy. He is not as viscous as Punch but will always eventually find a way to get the Gendarme in trouble. To these American eyes, deprived as we are of a native Punch variation, he reminds me of the old Warner Brothers cartoon character Bugs Bunny. The brilliant thing about these performances is the way get the children involved. Although involved is too polite a term. In this episode the officious Gendarme was eaten by a large puppet crocodile. After the Gendarme’s demise, Guignol arrives on the stage to have a picnic and to go fishing. The crocodile lurks just off stage; the children go nuts trying to warn the hapless Guignol. They shout. They point. They even stand. Guignol turns to the kids several times and says, “What are you talking about? I don’t see a crocodile.” They point furiously at the corner of the little stage. He continues fishing. A big tug is felt on the line… the children are almost pulling their hair out. Of course, in the end Guignol survives because he is Guignol. And you can’t kill Bugs Bunny. You can’t kill Guignol.
The kids are alright. Les enfants sont bien.
On Monday I took the metro out to the 20th arrondissement to find the office of Les Petits Bouffons. I was greeted by Pascal and Bernard in their small stuffy studio. They showed me dozens and dozens of puppets that were hanging from hooks on the wall. Pascal explained that they did longer shows like Beauty and the Beast and Puss’n’Boots, not forgetting to mention a few very bloody fairytales that did not find a home in the English-speaking world. They also had a futuristic (!) Guignol show. As comical as these shows could be these guys were very serious about the Guignol tradition. And even if they performed a standard fairytale Guignol had to at least be a minor character in the show, a butler or a waiter. In my interview with Pascal we discussed the meaning of puppets in this postmodern age. He pointed out that children have changed even since they started the troupe in 1991. Kids are now so immersed in television, games or computer screens that, even at a very young age, they come to the puppet show with very different expectations than they used to. As a result they are even more surprised than they used to be. You see the stage of the puppet theatre resembles an enormous television screen to the child’s untrained eyes. So they expect something like a movie. But then as they watch something strange happens. The puppets become real. They talk to the children. They come out from the stage in three tactile dimensions. They are completely unpredictable. All of Les Petits Bouffons’ performances are improvisations based upon many traditional plots.
Pascal Pruvost of Les Petits Bouffons in the studio.
Guignoliste Bernard Willeme with his background art
But the rascally Guignol or the anarchic Punch stand very far down on the puppetry scale of respect. Pascal said when it comes to puppet festivals “They don’t want to see us. It’s all become about the Performing Object. It’s become quite artistic.” Yet even though Guignol performances are folk art of the highest order they are basically ignored in the world around them. Yet it’s guys like Pascal and Bernard, with a passion for the strange little rogue, that keep the tradition alive: Guys like these and the thousands upon thousands of French children and their parents who accompany them to relive their own childhood Guignol recollections. I felt kind of proud of them for holding down the fort without much recognition or financial reward just because they value the reality of the puppet over the artificiality of the televised screen. Impressive.
More specimens including the Gendarme, the Devil and even a Czech Spejbl hanging around the Bouffons' atelier.
In 2008 the 200-year anniversary of Guignol was held in Lyon. The future of puppetry may indeed come down to performers like Les Petits Bouffons de Paris. The future is always built upon the past. Guignol is a slice of living history. Next time you are in Paris (or Lyon) check out the little buffoon
Meanwhile the Journey into European Puppetry continues with a visit to the surprising École Nationale Supérieure des Arts de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mézières.
Byrne Power
Haines, Alaska
11/27/11
For More Information about Les Petits Bouffons de Paris
More puppetry on The Anadromous Life
http://theanadromist.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/antidote-art-1/
http://theanadromist.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/antidote-art-2/
Dispatches from The Anadromous Life
The mainstream has vanished... with all its power and money. Now it was just us,bloggers, hackers, kids.
The more voices there are, the more spin there is. The truth becomes that much harder to find. In the end it’s all just noise.
From George A. Romero’s zombie film Diary of The Dead
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I’ve been officially been writing The Anadromous Life for a year now, since November 8th 2010. My only commitment has been to do this for one year. The year has passed.This seems to be a good moment to reflect on what I’m trying to accomplish and what I feel is the point of doing this.
The Flag of What Country? .... © Byrne Power
I suppose a good place to begin is to wonder who has been reading this and whether it has communicated anything. On a purely statistical level it has been curious to watch the numbers grows. WordPress has of course provide all sorts of statistics. It is easy to become obsessed with the numbers. But numbers are always abstract and mean very little in reality. One piece of data is interesting though. By the time you read this I will have had 14,000 hits on my sites on my way to 15,000. But what does that mean? 14, 000 people? Certainly not. If someone drops into The Anadromous Life and them clicks on several photos, each click is counted as another hit.
And speaking of photos, I have become quite skilled at finding the largest and most interesting photo files imaginable. I know that many people drop onto the site searching for a good reproduction of Bob Dylan’s John Wesley Harding album. I’ve had 147 people come to the site based on the search term “John Wesley Harding”. The all-time search phrase is some variant on “Mickey Mouse Evolution”, well over 1,000 hits, which doesn’t exactly thrill me. But hey what do I know? Maybe they are indeed all coming here to expose the creepy little rodent and his nefarious relationship to our society. Then I would indeed be glad. But I will continue to use interesting illustrations, most of which seem to be from promotional material or public domain. Because I know that a person who drops looking for a still from the Texas Chain Saw Massacre might just see that that the photo is not on some questionable site but rather is connected to a few thoughts and stick around to read the rest. I have indeed had a few comments that seem to reflect exactly that process.
And when it comes to comments I am always happy to have well considered remarks. There have a been a few that have strayed from course, which I have tried to treat with equanimity. But so far I have been lucky. No “Dude, this sucks!” ridiculousness yet. No flame either. No endless columns of comments filled with internet irateness? I’m pretty sure that’s mostly because I’m such a small fry that I haven’t attracted the trolls and anonymous ranters yet. But they are out there. And if they thought it mattered they would congest the site. Not that I would actually let them do it mind you. I’m not interested in the numbers of comments, but I am interested in the quality. And the more quality comments on point the merrier. So don’t feel shy. And certainly don’t feel like you can’t comment on the older posts as well.
One word I rarely use to describe what I’m doing is ‘blogging’. Why? Isn’t this a ‘blog’? I suppose you could call it that and I wouldn’t correct you. But in my mind these are essays, pure and simple. They happen to be on a computer. When I visit blogs, I tend to notice that often people just seem to be using the concept as a sort of modified extension of a journal. Fortunately the social networking sites seem to have taken up the slack on the day to day stuff. “Whoopee it’s snowing!” Click Like please. “Eating an awesome ham sandwich with German mustard!” Like. “Lost my wallet today.” Am I supposed to Like this? Whereas blogging is a bit longer and a bit more like a public journal. At best one gets insights into something the writer feels strongly about or an interesting observation. But then again it can be a random series of obsessive details or personal thoughts that really didn’t need to be shared.
This happened when MySpace first started gaining popularity. The diary, which fulfills a real need for private reflection, moves online to become shared with friends and passersby. But what happens when the private begins to disappear? Facebook has really refined this. Now we are swamped in the rather superficial lives of our friends. Mark Zuckerberg has gone on record as having a real antipathy towards privacy on many occasions. And while Facebook is quite (too?) useful, it has also changed its users to live more along the lines of Zuckerberg’s predilections. I’m determined not to live in that world. The world is still filled with mystery. It still takes time to know.
However I am most evidently in the minority. A majority people I know, and if you are reading this you can ponder your own complicity, seem satisfied with the headlines and captions that make up our contemporary existence. I can follow what is happening in the Occupy Wall Street world as people pass videos and articles around. Like. It doesn’t occur to folks that propaganda is happening. They seem to be in control. Like! No one wants a Big Brother providing all of our information. But few notice that we are now infused not by massive singular force, but by a blinding multiplicity of little brothers and sisters. Our communication has become more insectoid, brushing our antennae in short bursts and bytes. Like…
There is a moment in George Romero’s zombie apocalypse film from 2008, Diary of the Dead, when a character muses on the meaning of communication and news once we have killed off the mainstream Big Brother. What is left is the endless blogs and various other means of antennae brushing. But then what is left is ultimately noise. (See the quote above.) It’s a chilling reflection made by the man who essentially invented the modern concept of the zombie that seems to reach out to us wherever we turn these days. All of the blogs and postings turn out to clutter the choices rather than inform them. Romero is saying essentially saying. Television was bad. But this is worse.
Salmon Heads as Anadromous Puppetry .... Photo ©Byrne Power
And so I am thrown back like a salmon against the current. What is the point of adding to the noise? Well I have to remind myself of a few principles: One: I am not writing the daily noise down. Period. Two: It is worth communicating with individuals. It is worth creating. Good conversation still has value. Three: I’m not going to write short and sweet. Each piece takes what it takes. As I stated in my first couple of essays, I’m fighting against the stream by writing with as much truthful observation and content as possible. While I might from time to time write about food, I really don’t care if anyone knows what I ate today. Four: The point of these essays is to ultimately get published in a real world book, not to remain online, This site will indeed someday be shut down. Five: Endless minute communications from ourselves, AKA Little Sisters and Brothers, will be as damaging as that from any larger entity, it will be more insidious and make us laugh more. I care that a few people actually understand what I am trying to say, rather than have hundreds ‘Like’© me.
Meanwhile I will make my attempt to live and write The Anadromous Life for a while longer online and swim against the stream. I encourage whomever is reading this to find a way to fight your way against the stream too. My real goal: To point away from the virtual toward the real and the true.
Byrne Power
Haines, Alaska
November 8th 2011
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Here are a few links to the earliest essays on this site:
Welcome to the Anadrome
http://theanadromist.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/welcome-to-the-anadrome/
Rules of Engagement
http://theanadromist.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/rules-of-engagement/
Looking for the New Samizdat
http://theanadromist.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/looking-for-the-new-samizdat/
Faux Pas
Non-Random Comments