Now that the puppet is on the stage, imagine what a shock it would be to your audience to see a great hand coming down below the proscenium arch. To prevent this, always keep your hand, even during rehearsals, close to your control.
While on the stage, every motion must have a reason behind it. Puppets cannot move aimlessly about the stage any more than real actors can. Every gesture, too, must mean something.
Now the time has come to show yourselves as real artists. Your stage is your picture and though you change it with every move of your puppets, you are always making it the picture. This means that you should know what artists speak of as arrangement or composition.
Let us suppose that you are sitting in the audience and saw two puppets standing like this: “Oh, how stupid,” you would say. Imagine them standing like this:
Upper: Marionettes from "The Adventures of Alice."
Lower Left: Bear and Trainer from "Men of Iron."
Lower Right: Marionette from "Petroushka."
“How interesting.” But why interesting? The first spacing was equal, hence it was monotonous. The second was varied, therefore, more interesting. Again you are sitting in the audience looking at the picture and this is what you see:
