All the World’s a Puppet Stage

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Chinese shadow puppets made by the Lu Family (MOA Collection 3338/8-12; photo by Alina Ilyasova, courtesy of Museum of Anthropology at UBC)

Depending how you feel about puppets, the UBC Museum of Anthropology’s exhibition, Shadows, Strings and Other Things:The Enchanting Theatre of Puppets, may whisk you into a fairy-tale world of enchantment or cause you to run screaming from the room.

Love them or hate them, there’s no denying the ubiquity of puppets. In every corner of the globe, different traditions have emerged. Wooden puppets, shadow puppets, puppets on water and violent puppets – they manifest all manner of human dramas.  

Irrational fears aside, pleasures both big and small abound in this Vancouver show, on view until Oct 14. The largest puppet on offer is a Coast Salish creation named Meh, who stands 12 feet and requires five puppeteers. Described as an elder papa by curator Nicola Levell, a UBC anthropology professor, he looms benignly over visitors at the show’s entrance.

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Hand puppets by unknown Nahua or Totonac maker from Latin America (MOA Collection 3341/1-9; photo by Alina Ilyasova, courtesy of Museum of Anthropology at UBC)

The show, which includes some 250 puppets drawn mainly from the museum’s permanent collection, is grouped by the manner of manipulation – shadows, strings, rods, hands and stop-motion. 

The in-house design team went to town, embellishing the show with theatrical flair – velvet seats and proscenium arches, as well as animation, hand-lettered illustrations and kaleidoscopic colours, all aimed at evoking wonder and banishing pupaphobia, the fear of puppets.

Amongst the diversity, some commonalities occur – trickster figures pop up all over, as do tragic lovers, drunkards and, occasionally, the devil. In England, puppets beat the living hell out of each other, much to the delight of children. Other countries have gentler traditions. 

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Chinese shadow puppet made by the Lu Family (MOA Collection 3338/1 a-b; courtesy of Museum of Anthropology at UBC)

A long-lost love inspired Chinese shadow puppetry or píyĭngxì. Dating from the Han Dynasty some 2,000 years ago, it supposedly originated after Emperor Wu lost a beloved concubine. As a means of assuaging his grief, shadow puppetry was born. The puppets are operated behind a white fabric screen, casting shadows to tell stories. It’s an ethereal and delicate approach, as gossamer as silk. 

Many puppets on display come from traditions recognized by UNESCO on its list of intangible cultural heritage. But one of the more tangible (read: physical) traditions hails from Britain. Punch and Judy originated in the Commedia dell’arte, but found an enduring home in Old Blighty. 

The stories are simple. Punch and his long-suffering wife, Judy, take on all comers, and hilarity ensues – dropping babies, beating up the mayor, and even besting the devil. All adventures end with Punch crowing in inimitable style: “That’s the way to do it!” Hence the expression pleased as punch.

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String marionetas made by Portuguese puppet maker Jorge Cerqueira (MOA Collection 3105/1-2; photo by Alina Ilyasova, courtesy of Museum of Anthropology at UBC)

A similar rough-hewn tradition animates the Guignol characters from rural France. Crudely made, they are, nevertheless, expressive and oddly human. They drink wine, get red-faced and misbehave for the delectation of audiences. Who doesn’t love a naughty puppet? 

Although puppets often act out our darker impulses, they can also ennoble. A series of Portuguese marionetas the museum commissioned in 2012 from master puppet maker Jorge Cerqueira are based on the epic poem Os Lusiadas, a fantastical account of Vasco de Gama’s transatlantic voyage to India. Javanese wayang golek rod puppets perform epic stories from the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, which narrates the life of Rama, a legendary prince.

Sometimes, puppets get political. They were used on the frontline in Indonesia to help oust Dutch colonizers. And Vancouver-based animator Amanda Strong uses stop-motion puppets to address cultural genocide. In her most recent film, Four Faces of the Moon, her puppet avatar tells a story about federal government land policies and their lingering effects on Indigenous people.  

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Javanese wayang golek (rod puppets) by unknown makers (MOA Collection 2872/22, 2872/21, 2872/35, 2872/19; photo by Alina Ilyasova, courtesy of Museum of Anthropology at UBC)

What are we telling ourselves with these wood and paper facsimiles? Whether they let loose the id or cater to the superego, puppets are intimately bound to their makers. As I left the show, a fanciful thought occurred: Do puppets ever dream about escaping their manipulators? Freed from human hands, what stories would they tell? 

Puppets, untie! You have nothing to lose but your strings!  ■ 

Shadows, Strings and Other Things: The Enchanting Theatre of Puppets is on view at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver from May 16 to Oct. 14, 2019.

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