A Book of Marionettes

by Helen Haiman Joseph

The celebrated Marionette Theatre of Munich Artists, although inspired by the example of Papa Schmidt, was founded upon an altogether different basis and with other aims and ideals. Paul Brann, an author of local fame, was the instigator of it as well as its director. This small but elaborate modern theatre was built by Paul Ludwig Troost, and decorated elegantly but with careful taste, by other artists interested in the enterprise. The stage itself is equipped with every possible device useful to any modern theatre. There is a revolving stage such as that used by Reinhardt, and a complicated electrical apparatus which can produce the most exquisite lighting effects. The expensive furniture is often a product of the Königlichen Porcellan Manufactur. The mechanism for operating the figures is very perfect, the dolls themselves as well as the costumes, scenery, curtains, programs, etc., are all designed and executed by well known artists such as Joseph Wackerle and Taschner, Jacob Bradle, Wilhelm Schulz, Julius Dietz and many others. Indeed the scenic effects produced at this little marionette theatre have given it the reputation of a model in modern stagecraft.

The triumphs of these Munich puppets, however, do not depend altogether on pictorial successes. Upon the miniature stage there are presented dramas of the best modern poets as well as the older classic plays and the usual Kasperle comedies. Puppets must remain primitive or they lose their own peculiar charm, but the primitive quality may be ennobled. Brann does not in the least detract from the innate simplicity which the marionettes possess. Indeed, he considers this not a limitation but a distinguishing trait. However, he has added poetic art to the old craft and has expanded the sphere of the puppets. He has proven their poetic possibilities and justified their claim to the consideration of cultured audiences. The repertory has been specially selected to suit his particular dolls, somewhat pantomimic, on the whole, with a great deal of music. Generally the plays deal with incidents unrelated to everyday life and these marionettes convey their audiences with unbelievable magic to arcadian lands of dream and wonder. Graf Pocci’s little Kasperle pieces were not scorned by these artistic marionettes nor the old Faustspiel, Don Juan and the Prodigal Son, nor the folk-plays of Hans Sachs. To these were added a rich variety, including many forgotten operettas of Gluck, Adam, Offenbach, Mozart and others, Schnitzler’s Der Brave Cassian, Maeterlinck’s Death of Tintagiles, and Sister Beatrice, and dramas of Hoffmansthal. The popularity of these puppet productions in Munich, and their success all over the world, where they have been taken travelling into foreign lands, attest the worth and value of the interesting experiment. For art, music and literature a new medium has been discovered, or rather an old one re-adapted to suit the requirements of the modern poetic drama.

Of recent years the shadow play has not been altogether overlooked in Munich. In a 1909 issue of the Hyperion, Franz Blei, æsthete and critic, describes two exquisite shadow plays performed in the salon of Victor Mannheimer. The figures and scenery were the work of a young architect, Höne; actors read the text, and Dr. Mannheimer directed. “One thing,” writes Blei, “I believe was clear to all present: that both of the plays thus presented, unhampered by perspiring, laboring and painted living actors, appealed more strongly to the inner ear than they could possibly have done in any other theatre. The author was allowed to express himself, rather than the actor. The stage setting and the outlines of the shadows, very delicately cut in accordance with the essential traits of the characters, presented no more than a delightful resting place for the eye and the imagination of the beholder was unrestricted in supplying the features while lingering on the extreme simplicity of the picture.” Elsewhere too in Germany one finds appreciation of the possibilities of the shadow play, in its simplest form as well as in its sophisticated uses.

Exotic and rare are the dainty marionette figures fashioned by Richard Teschner in Vienna. From a performance of Javanese shadows witnessed in Munich the artist received the first suggestion for these delicate, precious creations. The thin, flexible limbs give us the feeling of the Eastern Wayangs. To this Teschner has gradually added a bit of the German folk spirit, quite noticeable in his society dramas where the little dolls resemble comfortable, bourgoisie Germans and only their fleshlessness reminds us of the Javanese origin. In other plays the Eastern flavor is purposely maintained. There is, for instance, the strange magician with the Assyrian headdress, or the enchantress in gorgeous stiff robes with menacing eyebrows, altogether oriental, and strange and beautiful. The grotesque and curiously misshapen animal forms conceived by Teschner remind us of deep-sea monsters similar to Hauptmann’s Nickelmann and of early Christian conceptions of Infernal frightfulness to be found in the Witches’ Kitchen of Faustus, or in the Temptations of St. Anthony. The smoothly finished, carefully fashioned naked figures have a rather brazen daintiness, permissible on the puppet stage alone. They offend perhaps at first sight by their deliberate daring but they possess a certain precise charm, a rather winning, rather quaint appeal. These precious little marionettes have been exhibited in private circles only.

Marionettes of Richard Teschner, Vienna

[Reproduced from Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration]

In Baden-Baden just before the war a quite remarkable and thriving puppet show was to be found, belonging to Ivo Pühony. These clever dolls were carved out of wood and were most adroitly manipulated, marvellously so, we are told. The repertory of the puppets was very extensive and ambitious. At the outbreak of the war Ivo Pühony packed his dolls away in cases and left them in Baden-Baden. In 1914 Ernest Ehlert, actor and manager, and Fräulein E. Weissmann took the neglected little creatures to Berlin where they performed with tremendous success. They produced, among other things, Doctor Sassafras, a puppet play by Pocci and no less ambitious a drama than Goethe’s Faust. The latter received a real ovation as a serious, artistic interpretation of the masterpiece; many witnesses declared the production more effective than when given upon the larger stage. The Frankfürter Zeitung contained this description of the performance: “The drama had a much purer and stronger emotional effect in this symbolic, miniature presentation with its modest and reliable lighting effects than is possible in the hard reality of the larger stage. The circle of the heavenly army shimmering in magic red reminding one of the pious fantasies of Beato Angelico; the voices of the archangels sounding from above; the gleam of white light when the voice of the Lord was heard; the dark chasm leading to the depths of the earth, out of which the wonderful little figure of Mephistopheles appeared and then, blinded by the radiance of Divinity, turned aside and covered himself with his bat’s wing: all this provided a pure artistic satisfaction which called forth enthusiastic applause.”

Less serious in nature but very remarkable were the famous Two Dancing Chinamen in the troupe of puppet actors. These agile little dolls, like figures from a Russian ballet, danced to the music of a phonograph with perfectly captivating antics. One witness has written: “It is hard to imagine how perfectly the slightly mechanical tone of the phonograph combines with the slightly mechanical motion of the figures to give an expression of what the fashionable philosopher of our day calls the élan vital.” The last heard of Pühony’s puppets was a prospective trip they were to take to the front for entertaining the soldiers and the grave problem of whether it would be wise to allow the erstwhile favorite marionette Caruso to go along, considering that, despite his power to amuse, he was after all a representative of the enemy.

Less excellent, crude puppet shows have gone wandering from village to village through Germany and Austria in recent years, but they have become more and more rare. These shows perform generally in the little town halls, with the villagers, high and low, crowding in to see performances of Faust (ever welcome) or Hamlet (with a happy ending), or, favorite of all, the life and death of the famous brigand Schinder Hannes. The love of the Germans for puppet entertainment is also constantly expressed in the little private puppet shows and shadow plays given by or for the children in their homes, usually gotten up for Christmas or birthday festivities.