INTERNATIONAL PUPPET FESTIVAL: 1990

But after the Second World War, a new urge to revive all traditional forms of art started. This also saw the revival of the puppet. Today, the old traditional puppet has been given a new life. The puppet is no more a mere entertainer and has been successfully playing a new role in education, therapeutics, rehabilitation of the handicapped, propaganda advertisement and mass communication. It has now been recognised that there are few limits to the power of puppets to provide aesthetic entertainment.

In India, China and other parts of Asia, the puppet predated documentary evidence. In Europe, evidence go back to 5^th century B.C. The puppet is not just a children’s doll or an automat, the human hand manipulating it and the narrator of the story breathe life into this little inanimate object. The whole act of puppet theatre is complex and the performance demands intimate rapport between the performer and the audience, without which the audiences sympathetic response to the story line of the theatre cannot be kindled. The audience must feel the change of the expression in these impersonal mute dolls. A spell of magic is cast by the manipulator’s hand and the voice of the narrator that wraps the audience who lend to the puppets their own fears, laughter and tears. The union between actor and audience is the very soul of puppet theatre.

Considering difference in design, mode of manipulation and presentational techniques, puppets are basically of four types: glove puppet, rod puppet, string puppet and shadow puppet. Whatever is its form, and though the modern puppet is trying to present the anguish and pain of the contemporary man, the puppet is basically a comedian and the story that it tells is always based on a legendry or mythological tale and tickles laughter in the audience.

There is some kind of universality and kinship in puppet theatre all over the world. This kinship of puppet theatre has brought puppeteers under one umbrella – The Union Internationale de la Marionnette (UNIMA). This global body with as many as 60 countries including India as their members aims at uniting puppeteers of the whole world. To UNIMA, puppetry means an art, which should with the child’s heart reach the hearts of nations. The members of UNIMA serve international peace with their art.

From March 10 to 15, the Executive Board of the UNIMA is meeting under the aegis of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. It is for the first time that India is playing host to this international body. To mark the occasion, the Council is presenting a Festival of Puppet Plays with five companies coming from Poland, Hungary, German Democratic Republic, USSR and France with 7 companies drawn from Kolkata, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kerala and such remote area like Agartala, Tripura.

One of the creative and innovative puppet plays that will be seen during the Festival is from Poland, ordinary paper, gloves, string, thread, scissors, candles, fire, mirrors, a wire cage, are materials for putting on the plays. Each time the play is produced the figures are cut out from the paper and in the end they burn down in the fire like victims of ruthless force. The plays are performed in blacked-out interiors, mirrors fitted into the cage serve as the floor, and the back wall and the ceiling reflect the light of the candle or fire burning inside. There is a subtle poetry and a sense of awe. What we see does not come near to our conventional experience of the puppet theatre. The figures are malleable and as they twist, dance, make love and gesticulate at the dictate of the manipulators’ hand, it is in this that it is a puppet play. The man behind this presentation is Grezegorz Kwiecinski, who likes to call his theatre the Poorman’s Theatre.

But the really poor man’s theatre comes with Rampada Ghorui from a village in Midnapur, West Bengal. Rampada comes from a traditional puppeteer’s family and performs in the streets of Kolkata. He does not require any formal stage. He manipulates, sings and narrates, and his themes are topical, like bride burning or admonishments against drinking, or about ravages caused by flood or drought. He makes his own puppets and creates his own lyrics.

In addition, the Festival will have large sophisticated groups from Russia, Hungary, France and Kolkata. Also there will be traditional shadow puppets from Chennai and glove puppets from Kerala. Both these forms were once dying art but they have given a new lease of life with aid from the Sangeet Natak Akademi. The team from Tripura again is an improvisation of the traditional puppet from that area, while the two teams from Delhi and Darpana of Ahmedabad respectively are experimenting on the traditional format using contemporary themes.

[Brief note was circulated during the International Puppet Festival 1990 at Delhi.]