Marionettes
In the manner Baumann carved, painted, and articulated the puppets, he gave each one their own personality. A puppet with many moving parts could suggest activity, Freckles and Wart, for example; and by giving Miguelito the burro fewer moving parts the puppet seems to have a solid, steady character. The marionettes vary a great deal in size because they represent a wide range of people and animals (and even a dancing banana tree). The largest are about 24 inches tall and the smallest about three inches.
marionettes
Performances of the replicate marionettes will take place the first Sunday of each month during the run of Pulling Strings: The Marionettes and Art of Gustave Baumann. The first puppet performances are Sunday, February 1, 2009 at 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.
Based in Nantes, France, the street theatre company Royal de Luxe performs around the world, primarily using gigantic, elaborate marionettes to tell stories that take place over several days and wind through entire cities. Puppeteers maneuver the huge marionettes -- some as tall as 12 meters (40 ft) -- through streets, parks, and waterways, performing their story along the way. Gathered here are images of several recent Royal de Luxe performances, from Belgium, Mexico, Germany, Chile, and England.
The Tanglewood Marionettes just finished 3 shows of Perseus and Medusa at Westfield Middle School. The adaptation of the story, the beautiful artistry of the marionettes and sets were incredible and perfect for this age group. Staff and students were mesmerized by their performance. Peter and Anne also graciously answered many questions after each show. I have been a fan of theirs for years, but to see them perform live after this L-O-N-G year was so uplifting and enjoyable. I speak for our entire school community when I say THANK YOU for a wonderful day.
The main theme is the abuse of technology. The creation of an android look-alike allows Braling to escape from his wife and indulge in pleasures otherwise denied him - specifically, a trip to Rio. While this may seem ideal, what this doesn't allow is a mature handling of the situation, one where responsibility is claimed instead of shunted to the most convenient piece of technology available. Having handed over that responsibility to his marionette, Braling is horrified when the marionette wants complete responsibility - actually loving his wife and wanting to take care of her. Building off that, a related theme is the danger of the creative imagination. The marionettes in the story are able to develop feelings and to imagine a world beyond their servitude.
The Mandalay Marionettes troupe has contributed an assortment of performance videos to the SEADL. Included in these is an introduction and overview to the Burmese marionette tradition; a ritual dance that is done to respect the Nats, or the guardian spirits of the area; the Himalayas dance, featuring the horse, monkey and demons; and a dance of an alchemist or the Zaw-Gyi dance. Daw Ma Ma Naing, one of the founders of the Mandalay Marionettes Theater, also gives a brief history about marionettes. Other videos highlight the skills of the puppeteers themselves, while demonstrating the dance of the two royal pages; a humorous dance performed by two villagers named U Shwe Yoe and Daw Moe; a dance between a human being and a puppet; a romantic and sentimental dance called "Myaing Da;"and a performance from the Ramayana epic where Rama chases a golden deer for his princess, Sita.
Gustave Baumann was an artist of many trades, including printmaking, painting and marionette-making. Baumann hand-carved and decorated wooden puppets, called marionettes, and brought them to life in live performances. Some characters were tall and skinny, others were short and stout, some were animals and some were humans, but all had a personality and story of their own. He created a traveling marionette theater complete with scripts, costumes, props, backdrops, scenery and a stage. Over a twenty year period, he created 65 marionettes; however he was not a puppeteer. He left the actual performances to his wife Jane and Teatro Duende. In 1932, the Baumann Marionette Christmas Show at the Museum became a cherished community tradition. Join us as we continue the community tradition at the New Mexico Museum of Art at our Annual Holiday Open House. This event is for all ages and is a round-robin of puppet plays, art making projects, photos with Santa Claus, gallery activities, refreshments and music by Barbershop Sounds. Marionette plays are one half-hour long, showing at 1:00pm and 3:00pm in the St. Francis Auditorium.
The policeman was standing at the corner of Twenty-fourth Street and aprodigiously dark alley near where the elevated railroad crosses thestreet. The time was two o'clock in the morning; the outlook a stretchof cold, drizzling, unsociable blackness until the dawn.A man, wearing a long overcoat, with his hat tilted down in front, andcarrying something in one hand, walked softly but rapidly out of theblack alley. The policeman accosted him civilly, but with the assuredair that is linked with conscious authority. The hour, the alley's mustyreputation, the pedestrian's haste, the burden he carried--these easilycombined into the "suspicious circumstances" that required illuminationat the officer's hands.The "suspect" halted readily and tilted back his hat, exposing, in theflicker of the electric lights, an emotionless, smooth countenance witha rather long nose and steady dark eyes. Thrusting his gloved hand intoa side pocket of his overcoat, he drew out a card and handed it to thepoliceman. Holding it to catch the uncertain light, the officer read thename "Charles Spencer James, M. D." The street and number of the addresswere of a neighborhood so solid and respectable as to subdue evencuriosity. The policeman's downward glance at the article carried in thedoctor's hand--a handsome medicine case of black leather, with smallsilver mountings--further endorsed the guarantee of the card."All right, doctor," said the officer, stepping aside, with an air ofbulky affability. "Orders are to be extra careful. Good many burglarsand hold-ups lately. Bad night to be out. Not so cold, but--clammy."With a formal inclination of his head, and a word or two corroborativeof the officer's estimate of the weather, Doctor James continued hissomewhat rapid progress. Three times that night had a patrolman acceptedhis professional card and the sight of his paragon of a medicine case asvouchers for his honesty of person and purpose. Had any one of thoseofficers seen fit, on the morrow, to test the evidence of that card hewould have found it borne out by the doctor's name on a handsomedoorplate, his presence, calm and well dressed, in his well-equippedoffice--provided it were not too early, Doctor James being a lateriser--and the testimony of the neighborhood to his good citizenship,his devotion to his family, and his success as a practitioner the twoyears he had lived among them.Therefore, it would have much surprised any one of those zealousguardians of the peace could they have taken a peep into that immaculatemedicine case Upon opening it, the first article to be seen would havebeen an elegant set of the latest conceived tools used by the "box man,"as the ingenious safe burglar now denominates himself. Speciallydesigned and constructed were the implements--the short but powerful"jimmy," the collection of curiously fashioned keys, the blued drillsand punches of the finest temper--capable of eating their way intochilled steel as a mouse eats into a cheese, and the clamps that fastenlike a leech to the polished door of a safe and pull out the combinationknob as a dentist extracts a tooth. In a little pouch in the inner sideof the "medicine" case was a four-ounce vial of nitroglycerine, now halfempty. Underneath the tools was a mass of crumpled banknotes and a fewhandfuls of gold coin, the money, altogether, amounting to eight hundredand thirty dollars.To a very limited circle of friends Doctor James was known as "The Swell'Greek.'" Half of the mysterious term was a tribute to his cool andgentlemanlike manners; the other half denoted, in the argot of thebrotherhood, the leader, the planner, the one who, by the power andprestige of his address and position, secured the information upon whichthey based their plans and desperate enterprises.Of this elect circle the other members were Skitsie Morgan and GumDecker, expert "box men," and Leopold Pretzfelder, a jeweller downtown,who manipulated the "sparklers" and other ornaments collected by theworking trio. All good and loyal men, as loose-tongued as Memnon and asfickle as the North Star.That night's work had not been considered by the firm to have yieldedmore than a moderate repayal for their pains. An old-style two-storyside-bolt safe in the dingy office of a very wealthy old-style dry-goodsfirm on a Saturday night should have excreted more than twenty-fivehundred dollars. But that was all they found, and they had divided it,the three of them, into equal shares upon the spot, as was their custom.Ten or twelve thousand was what they expected. But one of theproprietors had proved to be just a trifle too old-style. Just afterdark he had carried home in a shirt box most of the funds on hand.Doctor James proceeded up Twenty-fourth Street, which was, to allappearance, depopulated. Even the theatrical folk, who affect thisdistrict as a place of residence, were long since abed. The drizzle hadaccumulated upon the street; puddles of it among the stones received thefire of the arc lights, and returned it, shattered into a myriad liquidspangles. A captious wind, shower-soaked and chilling, coughed from thelaryngeal flues between the houses.As the practitioner's foot struck even with the corner of a tall brickresidence of more pretension than its fellows the front door poppedopen, and a bawling negress clattered down the steps to the pavement.Some medley of words came from her mouth, addressed, like as not, toherself--the recourse of her race when alone and beset by evil. Shelooked to be one of that old vassal class of the South--voluble,familiar, loyal, irrepressible; her person pictured it--fat, neat,aproned, kerchiefed.This sudden apparition, spewed from the silent house, reached the bottomof the steps as Doctor James came opposite. Her brain transferring itsenergies from sound to sight, she ceased her clamor and fixed herpop-eyes upon the case the doctor carried."Bress de Lawd!" was the benison the sight drew from her. "Is you adoctor, suh?""Yes, I am a physician," said Doctor James, pausing."Den fo' God's sake come and see Mister Chandler, suh. He done had a fitor sump'n. He layin' jist like he wuz dead. Miss Amy sont me to git adoctor. Lawd knows whar old Cindy'd a skeared one up from, if you, suh,hadn't come along. Ef old Mars' knowed one ten-hundredth part of desedoin's dey'd be shootin' gwine on, suh--pistol shootin'--leb'm feetmarked off on de ground, and ev'ybody a-duellin'. And dat po' lamb, MissAmy----""Lead the way," said Doctor James, setting his foot upon the step, "ifyou want me as a doctor. As an auditor I'm not open to engagements."The negress preceded him into the house and up a flight of thicklycarpeted stairs. Twice they came to dimly lighted branching hallways. Atthe second one the now panting conductress turned down a hall, stoppingat a door and opening it."I done brought de doctor, Miss Amy."Doctor James entered the room, and bowed slightly to a young ladystanding by the side of a bed. He set his medicine case upon a chair,removed his overcoat, throwing it over the case and the back of thechair, an advanced with quiet self-possession to the bedside.There lay a man, sprawling as he had fallen--a man dressed richly in theprevailing mode, with only his shoe removed; lying relaxed, and as stillas the dead.There emanated from Doctor James an aura of calm force and reservestrength that was as manna in the desert to the weak and desolate amonghis patrons. Always had women, especially, been attracted by somethingin his sick-room manner. It was not the indulgent suavity of thefashionable healer, but a manner of poise, of sureness, of ability toovercome fate, of deference and protection and devotion. There was anexploring magnetism in his steadfast, luminous brown eves; a latentauthority in the impassive, even priestly, tranquillity of his smoothcountenance that outwardly fitted him for the part of confidant andconsoler. Sometimes, at his first professional visit, women would tellhim where they hid their diamonds at night from the burglars.With the ease of much practice, Doctor James's unroving eyes estimatedthe order and quality of the room's furnishings. The appointments wererich and costly. The same glance had secured cognizance of the lady'sappearance. She was small and scarcely past twenty. Her face possessedthe title to a winsome prettiness, now obscured by (you would say)rather a fixed melancholy than the more violent imprint of a suddensorrow. Upon her forehead, above one eyebrow, was a livid bruise,suffered, the physician's eye told him, within the past six hours.Doctor James's fingers went to the man's wrist. His almost vocal eyesquestioned the lady."I am Mrs. Chandler," she responded, speaking with the plaintiveSouthern slur and intonation. "My husband was taken suddenly ill aboutten minutes before you came. He has had attacks of heart troublebefore--some of them were very bad." His clothed state and the latehour seemed to prompt her to further explanation. "He had been out late;to--a supper, I believe."Doctor James now turned his attention to his patient. In whichever ofhis "professions" he happened to be engaged he was wont to honor the"case" or the "job" with his whole interest.The sick man appeared to be about thirty. His countenance bore a look ofboldness and dissipation, but was not without a symmetry of feature andthe fine lines drawn by a taste and indulgence in humor that gave theredeeming touch. There was an odor of spilled wine about his clothes.The physician laid back his outer garments, and then, with a penknife,slit the shirt-front from collar to waist. The obstacles cleared, helaid his ear to the heart and listened intently."Mitral regurgitation?" he said, softly, when he rose. The words endedwith the rising inflection of uncertainty. Again he listened long; andthis time he said, "Mitral insufficiency," with the accent of an assureddiagnosis."Madam," he began, in the reassuring tones that had so often allayedanxiety, "there is a probability--" As he slowly turned his head to facethe lady, he saw her fall, white and swooning, into the arms of the oldnegress."Po' lamb! po' lamb! Has dey done killed Aunt Cindy's own blessed child?May de Lawd'stroy wid his wrath dem what stole her away; what break datangel heart; what left--""Lift her feet," said Doctor James, assisting to support the droopingform. "Where is her room? She must be put to bed.""In here, suh." The woman nodded her kerchiefed head toward a door."Dat's Miss Amy's room."They carried her in there, and laid her on the bed. Her pulse was faint,but regular. She passed from the swoon, without recoveringconsciousness, into a profound slumber."She is quite exhausted," said the physician. "Sleep is a good remedy.When she wakes, give her a toddy--with an egg in it, if she can takeit. How did she get that bruise upon her forehead?""She done got a lick there, suh. De po' lamb fell--No, suh"--the oldwoman's racial mutability swept her into a sudden flare of indignation--"old Cindy ain't gwineter lie for dat debble. He done it, suh. May deLawd wither de hand what--dar now! Cindy promise her sweet lamb sheain't gwine tell. Miss Amy got hurt, suh, on de head."Doctor James stepped to a stand where a handsome lamp burned, and turnedthe flame low."Stay here with your mistress," he ordered, "and keep quiet so she willsleep. If she wakes, give her the toddy. If she grows any weaker, let meknow. There is something strange about it.""Dar's mo' strange t'ings dan dat 'round here," began the negress, butthe physician hushed her in a seldom employed peremptory, concentratedvoice with which he had often allayed hysteria itself. He returned tothe other room, closing the door softly behind him. The man on the bedhad not moved, but his eyes were open. His lips seemed to form words.Doctor James bent his head to listen. "The money! the money!" was whatthey were whispering."Can you understand what I say?" asked the doctor, speaking low, butdistinctly.The head nodded slightly."I am a physician, sent for by your wife. You are Mr. Chandler, I amtold. You are quite ill. You must not excite or distress yourself atall."The patient's eyes seemed to beckon to him. The doctor stooped to catchthe same faint words."The money--the twenty thousand dollars.""Where is this money?--in the bank?"The eyes expressed a negative. "Tell her"--the whisper was growingfainter--"the twenty thousand dollars--her money"--his eyes wanderedabout the room."You have placed this money somewhere?"--Doctor James's voice wastoiling like a siren's to conjure the secret from the man's failingintelligence--"Is it in this room?"He thought he saw a fluttering assent in the dimming eyes. The pulseunder his fingers was as fine and small as a silk thread.There arose in Doctor James's brain and heart the instincts of his otherprofession. Promptly, as he acted in everything, he decided to learn thewhereabouts of this money, and at the calculated and certain cost of ahuman life.Drawing from his pocket a little pad of prescription blanks, hescribbled upon one of them a formula suited, according to the bestpractice, to the needs of the sufferer. Going to the door of the innerroom, he softly called the old woman, gave her the prescription, andbade her take it to some drug store and fetch the medicine.When she had gone, muttering to herself, the doctor stepped to thebedside of the lady. She still slept soundly; her pulse was a littlestronger; her forehead was cool, save where the inflammation of thebruise extended, and a slight moisture covered it. Unless disturbed, shewould yet sleep for hours. He found the key in the door, and locked itafter him when he returned.Doctor James looked at his watch. He could call half an hour his own,since before that time the old woman could scarcely return from hermission. Then he sought and found water in a pitcher and a glasstumbler. Opening his medicine case he took out the vial containing thenitroglycerine--"the oil," as his brethren of the brace-and-bit termit.One drop of the faint yellow, thickish liquid he let fall in thetumbler. He took out his silver hypodermic syringe case, and screwed theneedle into its place, Carefully measuring each modicum of water in thegraduated glass barrel of the syringe, he diluted the one drop withnearly half a tumbler of water.Two hours earlier that night Doctor James had, with that syringe,injected the undiluted liquid into a hole drilled in the lock of a safe,and had destroyed, with one dull explosion, the machinery thatcontrolled the movement of the bolts. He now purposed, with the samemeans, to shiver the prime machinery of a human being--to rend itsheart--and each shock was for the sake of the money to follow.The same means, but in a different guise. Whereas, that was the giant inits rude, primary dynamic strength, this was the courtier, whose no lessdeadly arms were concealed by velvet and lace. For the liquid in thetumbler and in the syringe that the physician carefully filled was now asolution of glonoin, the most powerful heart stimulant known to medicalscience. Two ounces had riven the solid door of the iron safe; with onefiftieth part of a minim he was now about to still forever the intricatemechanism of a human life.But not immediately. It was not so intended. First there would be a