The city of Munich built a little theater for Papa Schmidt, an old man who had spent all his life giving puppet plays. This was done through citizens who felt indebted to him for the pleasure he had given them as children. They said, the least they could do was to build him a theater, a place for himself and his daughter and their thousand puppets, that included all the characters in the beautiful fairy tales.
In Vienna, the artist Richard Teschner has created some remarkable modern marionettes. He has carved them most delicately from wood and has shown great ingenuity in the way he has put his little figures together.
In Bohemia, the puppets were interested in politics, if they were serious, and in comedies if they were not serious. In Hungary, they traveled with the gypsies. In Poland and Russia, they are loved by all the common people, and at Christmas celebrations still appear in their ancient rôles as Joseph and Mary and the Christ Child, as wise men, shepherds, and angels.
AMERICA
Puppets are not new in America. The North American Indians for hundreds of years used them in their great ceremonies. The Hopi Indians used marionettes to represent the mystic maidens who in ancient times gave them, according to their legends, the corn and other seeds. This ceremony is performed in a darkened room—in the center of which is a wooden framework. The marionettes are placed on a stage or platform and when the corn maiden’s song begins, the figures bend their bodies forward and backward in time to the music as they grind the meal between the miniature grindstones before them. The little figures are so cleverly manipulated that they even rub their faces with meal as the young Indian girls are accustomed to do. During the ceremony, two symbolic marionette birds are made to walk back and forth, on the framework, above the maidens, seeming to utter bird calls. The Hopi Indians also made marionettes of their enemies, the serpents, which represented floods and misfortune.
Most of the marionettes that we have known in America, until a few years ago, were Italian. They were very shy and would not leave their Italian neighborhoods. They often spoke no English. They gave plays about heroes that we know little or nothing about.
In America, there is a growing list of friends of the marionette. Probably the name best known to you will be that of Tony Sarg, a charming artist who has taken his puppet plays to the largest cities in our country and delighted us with his Rip Van Winkle, Rose and the King, and Don Quixote. The manager of his marionettes, Mr. Matthew Searle, is also an artist of ingenuity and taste.
In Chicago, the splendid work of Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Brown made new friends for the marionette. Mr. Perry Dilley introduced marionettes and guignol to the people of California. He produced a great number of interesting plays and all of his puppets are exceptionally fine. Mr. William Duncan and Mr. Edward Mabley, creators of the “Tatterman Marionettes,” have brought to the marionette stage unusual imagination and skill, which is admirably shown in their The Melon Thief, The King of the Golden River, and Pierre Patelin.
Madge Anderson has written beautifully of her puppet heroes. Mrs. Helen Haiman Joseph has written an excellent Book of Marionettes. If it were possible one would like to add the complete list of all those who are carrying on the great tradition of the marionette. The interest, already created, leads one to hope that America may take her place high up in the marionette tree.
