A Book of Marionettes

by Helen Haiman Joseph

But to return to the shows and showmen of other times. In the Elizabethan period the motions were very prominent. The puppets sometimes took over plays of the day, and satirized them cleverly upon their own stages, the dolls costumed as nearly as possible like the prominent actors whom they imitated. Later, when for a time the Puritans abolished the theatres, the marionettes were allowed to continue their shows, and thus the entire repertory of the real stage fell into their hands. Permanent puppet stages grew up all over London: people thronged to the puppets.

In Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair he allows the showman, Lanthorn Leatherhead, to describe his fortunes: “Ah,” he said, “I have made lots of money with Sodom and Gomorrah and with the City of Norwich but Gunpowder Plot, that was a veritable gift of God. It was that that made the pennies rain into the coffers. I only charged eighteen or twenty pence per head for admission, but I gave sometimes nine or ten representations a day.” Captain Pod, a seventeenth century showman mentioned in other writings of Ben Jonson, had a large repertory including, among other plays, Man’s Wit, Dialogue of Dives, Prodigal Son, Resurrection of the Saviour, Babylon, Jonah and the Whale, Sodom and Gomorrah, Destruction of Jerusalem, City of Nineveh, Rome and London, Destruction of Norwich, Massacre of Paris with the Death of the Duke de Guise and The Gunpowder Plot. In 1667 Pepys records in his Diary that he found “my Lady Castlemane at a puppet play, Patient Grizell.” The Sorrows of Griselda, indeed, was very popular at the time, also Dick Whittington, The Vagaries of Merry Andrew and The Humours of Bartholomew Fair. The marionettes, indeed, grew so much the vogue, and the rivalry was felt so keenly by the regular theatres, that in 1675 the proprietors of the theatre in Drury Lane and near Lincoln’s Inn Fields formally petitioned that the puppets in close proximity be forbidden to exhibit, or be removed to a greater distance, as they interfered with the success of their performances.

But not alone the theatres objected to the competition of the puppets. One may read in The Spectator, XVI, that young Mr. Powell made his show a veritable thorn in the flesh of the clergy. It was stationed in Covent Garden, opposite the Cathedral of St. Paul, and Powell proceeded to use the church bell as a summons to his performances, luring away worshippers from the very door of the church. Finally the sexton was impelled to remonstrate. “I find my congregation taking the warning of my bell, morning and evening, to go to a puppet show set forth by one Powell, under the Piazzas, etc., etc. I desire you would lay this before the world, that Punchinello may choose an hour less canonical. As things are now, Mr. Powell has a full congregation while we have a very thin house.”

This same Powell was the most successful motion maker of his day. He originated the Universal Deluge in which Noah and his family enter the ark, accompanied by all the animals, two and two. This show was given fifty-two consecutive nights, and was repeated two centuries later by the Prandi brothers in Florence. Powell had booths in London, Bath and Oxford, and played to most fashionable audiences. The Tatler and The Spectator mention him frequently. It was his Punch who sat on the Queen of Sheba’s lap, who danced with Judy on the Ark, and made the famous remark to Noah concerning the weather. He gave numerous religious plays, such as the “Opera of Susannah or Innocence Betrayed,—which will be exhibited next week with a new pair of Elders.” In 1713 he presented Venus and Adonis or The Triumphs of Love, a mock opera. As another attraction to his shows, the ingenious marionettist invented a fashion model, the little puppet, Lady Jane, who made a monthly appearance, bringing the latest styles from Paris. The ladies flocked to the puppets when she was announced on the bills.

A well known competitor of Powell was Pinkethman, in whose scenes the gods of Olympus ascended and descended to strains of music. Crawley was another rival. He advertised his show as follows: “At Crawley’s Booth, over against the Crown Tavern in Smithfield, during the time of Bartholomew Fair, will be presented a little opera called the Old Creation of the World, yet newly revived, with addition of Noah’s Flood, also several fountains, playing water during the time of the play. The last scene does present Noah and his family coming out of the Ark with all the beasts, two and two, and all the fowls of the air seen in a prospect sitting upon trees: likewise over the Ark is seen the sun rising in a glorious manner; moreover a multitude of angels will be seen in a double rank, which presents a double prospect, one for the sun, the other for the palace where will be seen six Angels ringing bells. Likewise Machines descend from above, double and treble, with Dives rising out of Hell and Lazarus seen in Abraham’s bosom, besides several figures dancing jigs, sarabands, and country dances to the admiration of the spectators: with the merry conceits of Squire Punch and Sir John Spendall.”

After these motion makers, came other showmen with many inventions. Colley Cibber wrote dramas for marionettes, and his daughter, the actress, Charlotte Clarke, founded a large puppet theatre. Russell, the old buffoon, is said to have been interested in this project also, but it finally failed. When the Scottish lords and other leaders of the Stuart uprising of 1745 were executed on Tower Hill, the beheading was made a feature by the puppet exhibitions at May Fair and was presented for many years after. Later Clapton’s marionettes offered a play of Grace Darling rescuing the crew of the Forfarshire, “with many ingenious moving figures of quadrupeds.” Boswell tells us in his Life of Johnson about Oliver Goldsmith, who was so vain he could not endure to have anyone do anything better than himself. “Once at an exhibition of the fantoccini in London, when those who sat next to him observed with what dexterity a puppet was made to toss a pike, he could not bear that it should have such praise, and exclaimed with some warmth, ‘Pshaw! I could do it better myself!’” Boswell adds in a note, “He went home with Mr. Burke to supper and broke his shin by attempting to exhibit to the company how much better he could jump over a stick than the puppets.” Dr. Johnson was a great admirer of the fantoccini in London, and considered a performance of Macbeth by puppets as satisfactory as when played by human actors.

At the end of the eighteenth century, Flockton’s show displayed five hundred figures at work in various trades. Browne’s Theatre of Arts, 1830–1840 travelled about at country fairs showing The Battle of Trafalgar, Napoleon’s Army Crossing the Alps and the Marble Palace of St. Petersburg. Some marionettes of the nineteenth century became satirical, attacking literature and politics with mischievous energy. Punch assumed a thousand disguises; he caricatured Sheridan, Fox, Lord Nelson. William Hazlitt wrote seriously in praise of puppet shows.

There are gaps in the history of English puppets which seem to imply a decline in the popularity of that amusement. One comes upon occasional records of shows straggling through the countryside, and giving the old, timeworn productions of Prodigal Son or Noah, or Pull Devil, Pull Baker. During the reign of George IV, puppets were found at street corners, dancing sailors, milkmaids, clowns, but Punch, as ever, the favorite.

Even now, puppets on boards may be seen in the streets of London. Of the old shows, one resident of that city relates: “When I was a child, marionettes used to go about the streets of London in a theatre on wheels about as big as a barrel organ, but I dare say I am wrong about size, because one cannot remember these things. I remember particularly a skeleton which danced and came to pieces so that his bones lay about in a heap. When I was properly surprised at this he assembled himself and danced again. I was so young that I was rather frightened.”

There is to-day one of the old professional marionette showmen wandering about in England, Clunn Lewiss, who still has a set of genuine old dolls, bought up from a predecessor’s outfit. For fifty years he has been traveling along the roads, like a character strayed out of Dickens. He has interested members of artistic coteries in London, who have been moved by the old man’s appeals for help, and some attempts have been made to revive interest in his show. Surely Clunn Lewiss deserves some recognition.